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m^^^a*mmim&^ 

BS 

Z5RQ 


GIFT  OF 


ST.  THOMAS 
THE  APOSTLE, 


IN  INDIA 


BY 


F.  A.  D'CRUZ,  K.S.G. 


.SILVER  BUST  OF  THE  APOSTLE  THOMAS  AT  ORTONA 
IN  ITALY. 


ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE, 

IN   INDIA. 

An   Investigation  based  on  the  latest  researches  in 

connection  with  the  Time-honoured  Tradition 

regarding  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Thomas 

in  Southern  India 

jr_ 

BY  ' 

*F.  A.  D'CRUZ,  K.S.G., 

Retired  Superintendent,  General  Records,  Government 

Secretariat,  Madras,  and  Editor,  "  The  Catholic 

Register"  San  Thome. 


TOMB  OF  ST.  THOMAS,  SAN  THOME. 

MADRAS  : 

PRINTED    BY    HOE    AND    CO.    AT    THE    "  PREMIER  "    PRESS, 

1922. 


MADJ3ASJ3ITV     JCATHCUC  MADRAS  j(A) 
SCALE 


(A)  PLAN  OF  MADRAS  CITY  AFTER  MARIAN 

CONGRESS  MAP. 

(B)  ROAD  DIVIDING  MADRAS  ARCHDIOCESE 
FROM  MYLAPORE  DIOCESE. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Introduction  by  Very  Rev.  Mgr.  A.  M.  Teixeira, 
Vicar-General  and  Administrator  of  the  Diocese 
of  San  Thome  . .  . .  . .  vii 

PART  I. 
ST.  THOMAS,  IN  THE  BIBLE  AND  TRADITION. 

I.  The  Bible  Record        . .  . .  1 

II.  The  Tradition  ..  ..3 

PART  II. 
THE  DISCUSSION. 

I.  Connection  with  India  . .  4 
II.  In  Southern  India       ..                  ..                  ..12 

III.  Dr.  Medlycott  on  the  subject        ..  ..26 

IV.  The  doubt  about  the  Martyrdom  . .  . .     32 
V.  The  Martyrdom— Different  Versions  . .     35 

VI.  The  Malabar  Tradition  ..  ..38 

VII.  The    Traditional    Record  according  to    Dr. 

Medlycott                  . .  . .  . .     40 

VIII.   Calamina   ..                  ..  ..  ..42 

IX.  Mylapore  . .                  . .  . .  . .     46 

X.  Conclusions                   ..  ..  ..50 

PART  III. 
SOME  MINOR  OBJECTIONS. 

I.   India  of  the  Ancients  . .  . .  52 

II.  St.  Pantrenus  . .  . .  ...     54 

III.  The  Jews  . .  . .  . .     57 

IV.  Ecclesiastical  support  to  the  Tradition  . .     58 

PART  IV. 

THE  LEGENDS. 

I.  Miracles— In  Poetry   ..  ..  ..60 

II.  The  Log    ..                 ,.  ..  ..63 

III.  St.  Thomas' Mount     ..  ..  ..64 

IV.  The  Little  Mount        ..  ..  ..66 

V.   Concluding  Remarks  . .  . .  67 

Authorities  Consulted  . .  . .  69 

53.1 !  30 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

SILVER  BUST  OP  THE  APOSTLE  THOMAS  AT  ORTONA  IN  ITALY.  Frontispiece. 

To  face  page 

PLAN  OF  MADRAS  CITY — AFTER  MARIAN  CONGRESS  MAP     ...  iii 

THE  PRESENT  CATHEDRAL  AT  SAN  THOME         . .  . .  vii 

THE  OLD  CATHEDRAL,  SAN  THOME  . .  . .  . .  1 

ST.  THOMAS'  MOUNT      . .  . .  . .  . .  3 

STAINED  GLASS,  CATHEDRAL,  TOURS  FRANCE    . .  . .  9 

Explanation. — First  and  second  bays  contain  scenes  based 
on  the  '  Golden  Legend '  regarding  the  Apostle 
Thomas  ;  third  and  fourth  bays  have  scenes  of  the  life 
of  St.  Stephen  the  Martyr. 

Left  bottom  :  (1)  King  Gondophares  sends  Habban  to 
engage  a  builder.  (2)  Christ  instructs  Thomas  to  go  to 
India.  (3)  Christ  consigns  Thomas  to  Habban. 
(4)  Habban  and  Thomas  embark  for  India.  (5) 
Banquet  feast,  King  and  others  present.  (6)  Thomas 
is  struck  on  the  cheek  by  the  cup-bearer.  (7)  Cup- 
bearer killed  by  a  lion.  (8)  Thomas  at  the  King's 
request  blesses  the  bride.  (9)  Thomas  before  King 
Gondophares.  (10)  Thomas  distributes  the  King's 
money  in  alms.  (11)  Destruction  of  the  idol  (the  devil 
in  the  form  of  a  black  monster).  (12)  The  high  priest 
kills  Thomas. 

COINS  OF  KING  GONDOPHARES         . .  . .  . .  10 

STAINED  GLASS  OVER  THE  HIGH  ALTAR  IN  THE  CATHEDRAL 

AT  SAN  THOME  . .  . .  . .  . .  12 

INTERIOR  OF  CATHEDRAL  AT  SAN  THOME  . .  . .  26 

SLAB  OF  CHALCEDONY  WHICH  COVERED  THE  APOSTLE'S 
RELICS  AT  CHIOS,  NOW  IN  THE  CATHEDRAL  AT  ORTONA, 

SHOWING  FIGURE  BUST  AND  GREEK  INSCRIPTION  .  .  30 

ALTAR  OF  ST.  THOMAS,  CATHEDRAL,  ORTONA,  ITALY, 
UNDER  WHICH  THE  APOSTLF/S  RELICS  REPOSE  .  .  31 

PORTAL  OF  THE  CHURCH  OF  "  NOTRE  DAME,"  SEMUR,  COTE 

D'OR,  FRANCE  . .  . .  . .  . .  35 

RELIQUARY  CONTAINING  FRAGMENT  OF  A  BONE  AND  POINT 
OF  A  LANCE  IN  SAN  THOME  CATHEDRAL  AND  REVERSE  OF 
THE  RELIQUARY  . .  37 


vi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

To  face  page 
STAINED  GLASS,  CATHEDRAL,  BOURGES,  FRANCE  . .  40 

Explanation. — First  Medallion,  bottom,  right:  (1)  Christ 
orders  Thomas  to  proceed  to  India  (the  gate  indicates 
departure  from  Caesarea).  (2)  Thomas  presented  to  the 
King.  (3)  Marriage  banquet.  (4)  Cup-bearer  attacked 
by  a  wild  beast. 

Second  Medallion  :  (1)  Thomas  blesses  the  bride  and 
bridegroom.  (2)  Thomas  before  a  King  (Gondophares). 

(3)  King  orders  the  construction  of  a  palace.  (4)  Thomas 
points  to  heaven  where  the  palace  has  been  erected. 

Third  Medallion  :  Thomas  sentenced  and  sent  to  prison. 
(2)  Thomas  distributes  blessed  bread,  or  communion, 
to  his  converts.  (3)  He  blesses  Mygdonia  while  in  prison. 

(4)  Perhaps  an  apparition  of  the  Apostle  after  death. 

THE  TOMB  OF  ST.  THOMAS  IN  THE  CATHEDRAL  AT  SAN  THOME  46 

PLAN  OF  SAN  THOME  ABOUT  1635 — FROM  A  DRAWING   BY 

P.  B.  DE  REZENDE  PRESERVED  IN  THE  BRITISH  MUSEUM.  58 

ALTAR  OF  THE  CHURCH  ON  ST.  THOMAS'  MOUNT  . .  60 

ANCIENT  STONE  IMAGE  OF  ST.  THOMAS  AT  MYLAPORE      . .  62 

ANCIENT  PICTURE  OF  THE  BLESSED  VIRGIN  AT  ST.  THOMAS' 

MOUNT  PAINTED  ON  WOOD  . .  . .  . .  64 

INTERIOR  OF  CHURCH  ON  ST.  THOMAS'  MOUNT  . .  . .  64 

ANCIENT  CROSS  AT  ST.  THOMAS'  MOUNT  . .  . .  65 

THE  LITTLE  MOUNT  CHURCH  . .  . .  . ,  66 

MARBLE  ALTAR  OF  ST.  THOMAS  IN  THE  CAVE  AT  THE  LITTLE 

MOUNT  . .  . .  . .  . .  67 

MIRACULOUS  SPRING  AT  THE  LITTLE  MOUNT  68 


INTRODUCTION. 

The  travels,  labours,    and  martyrdom  of  St.  Thomas, 
the    Apostle,  have    always    been    a    topic    of    absorbing 
interest.    More    literature    has    perhaps   been  written    on 
the  question  of  the  journeys  of  the  "  Unbelieving  Apostle  " 
by  writers  catholic  and  non-catholic  than  on  any  other — 
St.  Peter's    excepted.    Serious  doubts  based   on  so-called 
"  Historic  Criticism  "    have   been    raised  as    to  the  tradi- 
tional length  and    breadth    of    the    field  covered  by  the 
preaching  of  this  Apostle  of    Christ.     Some  critics,   while 
they    are    not    disposed    to  accept  the  possibility   of  the 
Gospel  having    been  preached  in    the    Malabar   and    the 
Coromandel  Coasts  by  St.  Thomas,  deign  at  least  to  admit 
that  he  preached  the  Gospel  in  the  extreme  north-west  of 
India  ;— but  that  he  ever  crossed  over  to  Southern  India — 
is  indeed  to  them  a  "  hard  saying  ".     The  coins  now  in  the 
British  Museum  and  elsewhere  of  King  Gondophernes,  or 
Gondophares,  who  ruled  over  those  regions  at  the  time  of 
St.   Thomas,    and  the  latter's  connection  with  his  Court, 
seem  to  leave   no   doubt  in  the  minds  of  such  critics  as 
to  the  fact  that  St.  Thomas  preached  the  Gospel  in  his 
kingdom— that  is,  in  the  north-west  corner  of  the  Indian 
Peninsula.  As  to  his  having  crossed  over  from  the  North 
to  Southern  India,  however,  is  questioned  by  them,  since, 
as  they  allege,    they   can    see   no    evidence    forthcoming. 
They  have  therefore  tried  to  relegate  the  existing  tradition 
in  the    South  to  the  Limbo    of    legend,    or — of    a   "  quid 
pro  quo." 

Now,   the   author    of   the   present   work,   Mr.    F.  A. 
D'Cruz.  K.S.G.,  while  he  does  not  hesitate  to  bring  forward. 


Vlll 

as  far  as  possible,  all  the  objections  that  have  been  raised 
against  the  time-honoured  tradition,  has,  on  the  other 
hand,  very  ably  gathered  together  in  a  nutshell  all  that 
can  be  said  in  support  of  the  tradition  that  St.  Thomas 
preached  and  suffered  martyrdom  in  Southern  India — 
drawing  his  arguments  from  the  data  supplied  both  by 
writers  sceptic  and  by  writers  believing.  He  has  left  out 
of  consideration  every  statement  and  shade  of  opinion 
which  might  be  called  in  question.  He  gives  us  in  this 
work  the  cream  of  the  evidence  thus  far  unquestioned  — 
gleaned  with  great  patience  from  a  deep  comparative  study 
of  different  authors  on  the  subject— and  which  may  with 
confidence  be  said  at  least  to  support  very  strongly  the 
tradition  of  the  apostolate  and  martyrdom  of  St.  Thomas 
in  Southern  India. 

The  author's  position  is  (1)— that,  even  if  the  evidence 
so  far  available  is  not  such  as  to  compel  belief,  it  never- 
theless argues  very  strongly  in  favour  of  the  tradition 
which  places  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Thomas  in  Southern 
India  ;  and  (2)— that  the  writers  who  have  tried  to  dis- 
credit, or  disprove,  it  have  failed  to  do  so.  Bearing  this  in 
mind,  sceptics  and  ultra-critics  will  set  themselves  a  hard 
task  should  they  still  persevere  in  trying  to  destroy  a  hoary 
tradition  based  upon  such  pertinent  facts  as  our  author 
has  so  well  succeeded  in  marshalling  together  in  this 
relatively  small  publication. 

It  has  been  admitted  by  the  best  authorities  that  it 
was  by  no  means  difficult  for  St.  Thomas  to  find  his  way 
to  Southern  India  by  way  of  the  Persian  G-ulf,  or  the 
Red  Sea,  even  if  he  could  not  have  done  so  over- 
land. Roman  vessels  were  plentiful  in  those  days  both  in 


IX 

Malabar  and  Ceylon.  Their  route  was  the  Eed  Sea — which 
the  Eomans  easily  reached  from  Alexandria.  Numerous 
gold  and  silver  coins  from  the  time  of  Augustus 
Caesar  have  recently  been  un- earthed  in  Malabar  and 
Ceylon.  These  facts  again  suggest  the  possibility  of 
St.  Thomas  having  followed  the  Roman  route  to  India  via 
the  Red  Sea.  And  the  fact  that  the  Island  of  Socotra 
claims  to  have  been  evangelised  by  this  Apostle  is  signifi- 
cant. In  this  connection  again  the  following  words  quoted 
from  an  April  number  of  the  "  Madras  Times"  1915, 
relating  to  a  collection  of  such  coins  in  the  Madras  Museum 
will  be  read  with  interest  :  — 

"  It  is  wonderful  testimony  to  the  extent  of  the 
Roman  Empire  that  out  here  in  India  there  should  be  so 
many  finds  of  old  Roman  coins.  Mr.  Desikachariar  tells 
us  that  for  a  period  dating  from  Augustus,  whose  reign 
included  the  year  1  of  the  Christian  era,  there  was  consi- 
derable commercial  intercourse  between  South  India  and 
Rome.  In  the  luxurious  days  of  the  Emperors,  treasures 
were  imported  from  all  parts  of  the  world  into  the  great 
<city.  It  is  interesting  to  wonder  whether  these  coins 
at  the  Museum  were  the  price  of  peacocks  supplied 
for  the  glorification  of  a  Csesar's  wife." 

"  Roman  intercourse  with  India  was  such  that  a  force 
of  Roman  cohorts  was  stationed  on  the  Malabar  Coast  to 
protect  Roman  trade  and  it  is  thought  possible  that  the 
supplies  of  Roman  coins  in  India  may  have  been  minted 
locally  for  the  convenience  of  the  large  colony  of  Roman 
merchants  and  Roman  soldiers  in  India  and  Ceylon/' 

"  Tyler  Denett  again  while  describing  the  Romantic 
History  of  Ameradhapura— the  dream  city  of  Ceylon  in 

2 


the  New  York  Tribune,  says  that  Koman  coins — a  few  gold 
ones  and  many  of  copper — have  been  found  in  the  ruins  of 
other  cities.  Doubtless  the  Singalese  maintained  commer- 
cial relations  with  the  Eomans  for  centuries  after  Constan- 
tinople was  established." 

The  thanks,  therefore,  and  gratitude  of  the  Diocese  of 
St.  Thomas  of  Meliapur  are  due  to  the  author  for  his  patient 
study,  research,  and  endeavour  in  bringing  out  a  publica- 
tion which  in  a  few  pages  throws  more  light  perhaps  on 
the  subject  than  volumes  of  others  have  done.  The 
thanks  are  his  too— of  all  the  lovers  of  this  fiery  Apostle 
whose  own  doubt  of  Christ's  Resurrection  from  the  Dead 
affords  us  the  surest  proof  of  it, —of  that  Apostle,  I  say, 
who  we  at  forth  into  the  farthest  ends  of  the  earth  preaching 
his  Risen  Lord  and  God.  I  have  no  doubt  this  little 
volume  will  appeal  to  the  learned— besides  being  of  interest 
to  the  genera]  reader— and  to  the  many  pilgrims  in  parti- 
cular, as  well  as  tourists,  who  from  all  parts  of  the  world 
constantly  visit  the  Apostle's  Shrines  at  the  San  Thome 
Cathedral,  the  "  Little  Mount",  and  St.  Thomas' Mount, 
with  which  the  history  of  modern  Madras  is  so  intimately 
bound  up. 

SAN  THOME  DE  MELIAPUR, 

FEAST  OF  ST.  THOMAS,  APOSTLE, 

21st  December  1921. 

A.  M.  TEIXEIRA, 

Vicar -General  and  Administrator  of  the 

Diocese  of  Mylapore*. 


ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA. 

PAET  I. 

ST.  THOMAS  IN  THE  BIBLE  AND  TRADITION. 
I.  THE  BIBLE  RECORD. 

No  incident  is  recorded  of  St.  Thomas,  the  Apostle, 
in  the  synoptic  Gospels.  Only  his  name  is  mentioned  with  the 
others  in  the  lists  given  by  Matthew  (x.  3),  Mark  (iii.  18) 
and  Luke  (vi.  15).  In  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  however,  he 
appears  in  a  characteristic  light,  and  is  revealed  as  a  person- 
ality of  singular  charm  and  interest,  full  of  devotion  and 
ready  to  die  with  his  Lord  and  Master.  It  was  when 
Jesus  was  going  to  Judaea  to  raise  Lazarus  to  life,  where  the 
Jews  had  lately  sought  to  stone  Him,  and  the  rest  of  the  dis- 
ciples endeavoured  to  dissuade  Him  from  making  that  jour- 
ney, that  St.  Thomas,  who  is  here  called  Didymus  (twin), 
said  :  "  Let  us  also  go  that  we  may  die  with  Him."  (John, 
xi.  16).  So  great  was  his  love  for  his  Divine  Master  even 
before  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Again,  when  our 
Lord  at  the  Last  Supper  informed  his  disciples  that  He  was 
about  to  leave  them,  but  told  them  for  their  comfort  that  He 
was  going  to  prepare  a  place  for  them  in  His  Father's  House, 
and  whither  he  was  going  they  knew  and  the  way  they 
knew,  St.  Thomas,  who  ardently  desired  to  follow  Him,  said  : 
"  Lord,  we  know  not  whither  thou  goest ;  and  how  can  we 
know  the  way  ?"  Christ  at  once  quieted  his  misapprehen- 
sion by  replying  :  "I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life  : 
no  man  cometh  to  the  Father,  but  by  me."  (John,  xiv.  2-6). 
After  His  resurrection,  when  our  Lord  appeared  to  His  dis- 
ciples, Thomas  was  not  with  them,  and  would  not  credit 


,  TflE  APOSTLE.,  IN  INDIA 
*****  •*•••**     *•**•      • 
•  *•••*••*•••*    ••••••    •  •* 

their  statement  that  they  had  seen  the  Lord.  "  Except  I  see 
in  his  hands,"  he  said,  "  the  print  of  the  nails  and  put  my 
finger  into  His  side,  I  will  not  believe."  He  evidently  pre- 
sumed that  it  was  a  mere  phantom  or  apparition.  After 
eight  days  when  the  disciples  were  again  assembled  and 
Thomas  was  with  them,  Jesus  appeared  and  stood  in  their 
midst,  although  the  doors  were  shut,  and  said  :  "  Peace  be 
to  you."  Then  addressing  Thomas,  He  said  :  "  Put  in  thy 
finger  hither  and  see  my  hands.  And  bring  hither  thy  hand 
and  put  it  into  my  side  ;  and  be  not  faithless  but  believing." 
Thomas  answered  and  said  to  Him  :  "  My  Lord  and  my 
God."  Jesus  then  said  to  him  :  "  Because  thou  hast  seen 
me,  Thomas,  thou  hast  believed  :  blessed  are  they  that  have 
not  seen  and  have  believed."  (John,  xx.  20-29).  Notwith- 
standing this  gentle  rebuke  of  our  Lord,  the  very  circum- 
stance of  St.  Thomas's  incredulity  at  first  and  subsequent 
confession  of  faith  in  the  reality  of  the  Resurrection  and  of 
the  Divinity  of  Christ,  is  held  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Church 
as  having  done  more  to  confirm  us  in  our  faith  in  those  fun- 
damental truths  of  Christianity  than  the  belief  of  all  the 
other  Apostles.  St.  Thomas  was  present  again  when  our 
Lord  appeared  once  more  to  his  disciples  by  the  sea  of 
Tiberias  (John,  xxi.  2)  ;  and  he  is  mentioned  for  the  last  time 
in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  (i.13-14)  when,  after  the  Ascension 
of  Christ  into  Heaven,  Thomas  is  said  to  have  been  in  an 
upper  room  in  Jerusalem  with  the  other  Apostles,  "  persever- 
ing with  one  mind  in  prayer  with  the  women  and  Mary 
the  mother  of  Jesus  and  with  his  brethren."  This  is  all 
that  can  be  gathered  from  the  Bible  regarding  Thomas, 
the  Apostle. 


. 


CO 


II.  THE  TRADITION. 

As  regards  his  subsequent  career,  tradition  has  it,  to 
take  the  summary  given  in  the  Roman  Breviary,  that  the 
Apostle  Thomas,  who  was  also  called  Didymus,  a  Galilean, 
after  receiving  the  Holy  Ghost,  went  to  many  countries  to 
preach  the  Gospel  of  Christ ;  that  he  handed  over  the  pre- 
cepts of  the  Christian  faith  and  life  to  the  Parthians,  the 
Medes,  the  Persians,  the  Hircanians  and  the  Bactrians  ;  that 
finally  betaking  himself  to  the  Indians  he  instructed  them 
in  the  Christian  religion  ;  that  when  towards  the  end,  by 
the  sanctity  of  his  life  and  doctrine  and  the  greatness  of 
his  miracles,  he  aroused  in  all  others  admiration  for  himself 
and  love  for  Jesus  Christ,  he  greatly  excited  to  anger  the  King 
of  that  nation,  a  worshipper  of  idols  ;  and  being  condemned 
by  his  sentence  and  pierced  with  arrows,  he  adorned  the 
honour  of  the  Apostolate  with  the  crown  of  martyrdom 
at  Calamina.  This  is  supplemented  by  the  information  re- 
corded  in  the  Roman  Martyrology,  where  it  is  further  stated 
that  his  relics  were  first  translated  to  Edessa  (now  called 
Urfa  or  Orfa,  a  City  of  Northern  Mesopotamia  on  a  tribu- 
tary of  the  Euphrates)  and  then  to  Ortona  in  Central  Italy 
on  the  Adriatic.  Then  there  is  the  long-accepted  belief  that 
he  not  only  visited  the  north  of  India,  but  also  preached 
in  Southern  India,  where  he  established  churches  and  left 
congregations  known  to  this  day  as  the  St.Thomas'  Christians, 
and  that  in  the  end  he  was  martyred  in  St.  Thomas'  Mount 
and  buried  in  San  Thome,  now  a  suburb  of  Madras.  And 
thus  the  glory  of  the  introduction  of  Christianity  in  India 
has,  by  time-honoured  tradition,  been  ascribed  to  St. 
Thomas,  the  Apostle. 


PART  II. 

THE  DISCUSSION. 

I.  CONNECTION  WITH  INDIA. 

The  question  of  St.  Thomas's  connection  with  India 
has  been  a  subject  of  perennial  interest,  and  quite  a  consi- 
derable amount  of  literature  has  grown  around  it. 
Mr.  Vincent  Smith  in  his  Oxford  History  of  India,  1919, 
remarks,  that  "  the  subject  has  been  discussed  by  many 
authors  from  every  possible  point  of  view,  and  immense 
learning  has  been  invoked  in  the  hope  of  establishing  one 
or  other  hypothesis,  without  reaching  any  conclusion  ap- 
proaching certainty."  And  he  adds  :  '  There  is  no  reason 
to  expect  that  additional  evidence  will  be  discovered." 
It  may  be  that  fresh  evidence  will  never  be  discovered  to 
confirm  with  certainly  the  time-honoured  tradition  as  we 
have  it  now.  But  is  it  the  case  that  Mr.  Vincent  Smith 
himself  has  made  the  best  of  what  evidence  we  have  ?  It  is 
hoped  that  the  present  investigation  will  show  that  the 
evidence  already  available  is  even  stronger  in  support  of  the 
tradition  connecting  St.  Thomas  with  Southern  India  than 
Mr.  Vincent  Smith  has  allowed,  and  that  those  writers  who 
are  disposed  to  confine  the  Apostle's  labours  to  the  north 
of  India  are  by  no  means  justified  in  doing  so. 

The  most  comprehensive  research  on  this  subject  is  con- 
tained in  that  volume,  published  in  1905,  entitled,  "  India 
and  the  Apostle  Thomas."  by  Dr.  A.  E.  Medlycott,  at  one 
time  Vicar  Apostolic  of  Trichur  in  the  Cochin  State.  And 
yet  it  is  curious  to  note  that  Dr.  Burkitt  in  his  article  on 
St.  Thomas  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  makes  the 
remark  that  Dr.  Medlycott's  India  and  the  Apostle  Thomas  is 
wholly  uncritical,  and  Father  Thurston  in  the  bibliography 


CONNECTION  WITH  INDIA  5 

Attached  to  his  article  on  the  same  subject  in  the  Catholic 
Encyclopedia  merely  echoes  the  statement  by  referring  to 
Dr.  Medlycott's  book,  as  a  work  written  by  a  Catholic  Vicar 
Apostolic,  but  uncritical  in  tone.  Neither  of  these  writers, 
however,  assigns  any  reason  for  so  sweeping  a  statement.  As 
the  ordinary  reader  will  naturally  go  to  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica  or  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia  for  some  short 
condensed  information  on  the  subject,  it  is  well  to  inquire 
how  far  the  articles  in  them  can  be  relied  upon,  and  how 
far  their  authors  are  justified  in  maintaining  as  against 
Dr.  Medlycott  that,  while  there  is  evidence  to  show  that 
St.  Thomas  preached  in  the  north  of  India,  there  is  not 
sufficient  evidence  to  support  the  tradition  connecting  the 
Apostle  with  Southern  India. 

As  against  the  sweeping  condemnation  of  Dr.  Medly- 
cott's work  referred  to,  it  would  suffice  to  cite  the  opinion 
of  the  writer  (J.  Kennedy),  who  reviewed  Dr.  Medlycott's 
work  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  for  October 
1906.  This  writer  says  :  "In  many  respects  he  is  well 
fitted  for  his  task.  He  has  a  knowledge  of  Syriac,  and  is 
acquainted  with  the  local  legends  of  Mylapore,  and  the 
latest  researches  of  Indian  scholars,  as  well  as  of  English 
and  German  students  of  the  Apocrypha.  He  brings  an 
immense  mass  of  material  to  the  discussion — the  Epitaph  of 
Abercius,  the  Acts  of  Paul  and  Thekla,  of  Andrew,  and  of 
Archelaus  ;  he  gives  the  history  of  the  Apostle's  relics  ;  and 
he  goes  through  the  evidence  for  an  Indian  Church  before 
the  days  of  Cosmas  Indicopleustes.  Moreover,  he  has 
given  as  his  own  special  contribution  to  the  subject  extracts 
from  the  Church  calendars  and  sacramentaries."  And 
again  when  concluding  his  review  Mr.  Kennedy  remarks : 
*  If  we  are  seldom  convinced  by  the  Bishop's  arguments, 


6  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

we  are  thankful  to  him  for  the  fullness  of  his  materials  and 
the  antidote  he  offers  to  the  ultra-sceptical  position  of  Milne 
Bae."  Thus,  while  refusing  to  accept  some  of  Dr.  Medly- 
cott's  conclusions,  Mr.  Kennedy  does  not  grudge  to  acknow- 
ledge that  he  was  well  fitted  for  his  task.  Besides,  as 
Mr.  Vincent  Smith  also  testifies,  Dr.  Medlycott's  book 
"  supplies  an  invaluable  collection  of  ecclesiastical  texts  " 
and  "  is  full  of  abstruse  learning."  We  can  have  no 
hesitation,  therefore,  in  drawing  upon  Dr.  Medlycott's 
materials,  among  others,  for  our  present  investigation, 
without  accepting  all  he  has  to  say  on  the  subject. 

The  fault  in  Dr.  Medlycott  is  that  he  is  too  diffuse, 
and  "  full  of  abstruse  learning,"  as  Mr.  Vincent  Smith  has 
remarked,  and  he  lays  more  stress  on  minor  points  than  is 
necessary,  and  thus  diverts  the  mind  from  the  main  issues. 
His  object  was  to  bring  together  a  mass  of  evidence,  not 
only  to  establish  the  truth  of  the  tradition,  but  also  to 
show  that  there  was  a  persistent  and  constant  tradition  in 
the  Church  connecting  the  Apostle  with  Southern  India. 
It  is  his  method  that  has  made  it  difficult  for  some  critics 
to  follow  him. 

The  Rev.  George  Milne  Rae,  referred  to  by  Mr.  Ken- 
nedy, was  once  a  Professor  of  the  Christian  College,  Madras. 
He  published  a  book  in  1892  on  The  Syrian  Church 
in  India,  which  is  often  quoted,  and  in  which  he  aimed  at 
showing  that  St.  Thomas  preached  only  in  that  part  of 
India  which  lies  to  the  west  of  the  Indus  and  not  in  the 
south.  The  aim  of  the  present  essay  is  to  show  that  there 
is  no  justification  for  confining  St.  Thomas's  labours  to 
the  north,  and  ignoring  the  weight  of  the  evidence  in 
favour  of  the  Apostle's  connection  with  the  south. 


CONNECTION  WITH  INDIA  7 

A  little  before  Dr.  Medlycott  published  his  book,  an 
article  appeared  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society 
for  April  1905  on  "  St.  Thomas  and  Grondophernes  "  by 
J.  Fleet,  I.C.S.  (Retired),  Ph.D.,  C.I.E.  The  writer  here 
summed  up  the  results  of  an  investigation  undertaken  by 
Mr.  W.  R.  Philipps  in  the  Indian  Antiquary  (1903)  from 
Western  sources  of  information,  and  supplemented  Mr. 
Philipps'  work  by  an  examination  of  an  item  obtained  from 
Eastern  sources  by  way  of  corroboration  of  the  Western 
tradition.  Dr.  Burkitt  considers  that  the  best  investiga- 
tion of  the  traditions  connecting  St.  Thomas  with  India  is 
that  by  W.  R.  Philipps  in  the  Indian  Antiquary,  while 
Father  Thurston  refers  to  Dr.  Fleet's  article  as  "  his  severely 
critical  paper."  We  cannot  do  better,  therefore,  than 
-begin  with  these  authorities,  and  then  turn  to  Dr. 
Medlycott  and  other  sources  as  we  proceed  with  the  subject. 

In  the  meantime  it  must  be  observed  that  Dr.  Philipps 
himself  in  drawing  up  the  General  Conclusions  arrived  at 
as  a  result  of  his  researches,  put  them  forward  as  tentative, 
as  he  hoped  that  Dr.  Medlycott,  who  was  then  writing  his 
volume,  would  afford  us  some  fresh  information,  especially 
from  recently  explored  syriac  sources.  How  far  Dr.  Medlycott 
has  succeeded  in  throwing  further  light  on  the  matter  will  be 
seen  from  our  present  investigation. 

However,  Dr.  Fleet  says  that  Mr.  Philipps  has  given  us 
an  exposition  of  the  Western  traditional  statements  up  to  the 
sixth  century  A.D.  and  that  one  decidedly  important  fea- 
ture of  his  result  is  that  they  make  it  quite  clear,  even  to 
those  who  have  not  specially  studied  the  matter,  that  we 
are  not  in  any  way  dependent  upon  apocryphal  writings 
-or  upon  certain  later  works  which  he  specifies,  as  the 
3 


8  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

tradition  goes  back  to  much  more  ancient  times  and  is 
based  upon  far  better  authority.  And  taking  only  some 
of  the  most  ancient  statements,  Dr.  Fleet  finds  that,  in  its 
earliest  traceable  form,  the  tradition  runs  thus  :  — 

According  to  the  Syriac  work  entitled,  The  Doctrine 
of  the  Apostles,  which  was  written,  he  says,  in  perhaps  the 
second  century  A.D.,  St.  Thomas  evangelised  "  India." 
St.  Ephraem,  the  Syrian  (born  about  A.D.  300,  died  about 
378),  who  spent  most  of  his  life  at  Edessa  in  Mesopotamia, 
states  that  the  Apostle  was  martyred  in  "  India,"  and  that 
his  relics  were  taken  thence  to  Edessa.  That  St.  Thomas 
evangelised  the  Parthians  is  stated  by  Origen  (born  A.D. 
185  or  186,  died  about  251—254).  Eusebius  (Bishop  of 
Csesarea  Palsestinse  from  A.D.  315  to  about  340)  says  the 
same.  And  the  same  statement  is  made  by  the  "  Clementine 
Recognitions,"  the  original  of  which  may  have  been  written 
about  A.D.  210. 

A  fuller  tradition,  he  says,  is  found  in  The  Acts  of  St. 
Thomas,  which  exists  in  Syriac,  Greek,  Latin,  Armenian, 
Ethiopian  and  Arabic,  and  in  a  fragmentary  form  in  Coptic. 
And  this  work  connects  with  St.Thomas  two  Eastern  Kings, 
whose  names  appear  in  the  Syriac  version  as  Gudnaphar, 
Gundaphar,  and  Mazdai.  The  Syriac  version  of  the  Acts, 
he  says,  may  be  regarded  as  the  original  one,  and  as  more 
likely  than  the  others  to  present  fragments  of  genuine  history. 
It  dates  back,  according  to  Dr.  Wright  to  not  later  than  the 
fourth  century  ;  while  Mr.  Burkitt  would  place  the  compo- 
sition of  it  before  the  middle  of  the  third  century,  and  Lipsius 
would  seem  to  have  placed  it  in  or  about  A.D.  232.  Harnack, 
according  to  Fr.  Thurston  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia, 
assigns  to  it  even  an  earlier  date,  before  A.D.  220. 


STAINED  GLASS,  CATHEDRAL, 
TOURS,  FRANCE. 

(See  Explanation  p.  v.) 


CONNECTION  WITH  INDIA  9 

The  substance  of  the  tradition  as  gathered  from  the 
Acts  according  to  Dr.  Fleet  is  as  follows  : — 

On  the  occasion  when  the  twelve  Apostles  divided  the 
countries  of  the  world  among  themselves  by  lot,  e  India' 
fell  to  St.  Thomas.  He  did  not  wish  to  go  there.  But  a 
merchant  named  Habban  had  been  sent  into  "  the  southern 
country  "  by  Gudnaphar,  "  King  of  India,"  to  procure  for 
him  a  skilful  artificer.  Our  Lord  appeared  to  Habban 
and  sold  St.  Thomas  to  him  for  twenty  pieces  of  silver. 
St.  Thomas  and  Habban  started  next  day.  Travelling 
by  ship  they  came  to  a  place  named  Sandaruk.  There  they 
landed  and  attended  the  marriage  feast  of  the  King's  daughter. 
Thence  they  proceeded  into  "  India"  and  presented  them- 
selves before  King  Gudnaphar.  And  there  St.  Thomas 
preached  in  the  cities  and  villages,  and  converted  the  King 
himself  and  his  brother  and  many  other  people.  After 
that,  while  St.Thomas  was  preaching  "throughout  all  India," 
he  went  to  the  city  of  King  Mazdai.  There,  as  the  result 
of  his  converting  Mazdai's  wife  Tertia  and  a  noble  lady 
named  Mygdonia,  he  was  condemned  to  death.  He  was 
slain  with  spears  by  four  soldiers  on  a  mountain  outside  the 
city.  And  he  was  buried  in  the  sepulchre  in  which  the 
ancient  kings  were  buried.  But  subsequently,  while  King 
Mazdai  was  still  living,  the  bones  of  the  Apostle  were  secretly 
removed  by  one  of  the  brethren  and  were  taken  away  to 
"  the  West." 

The  Greek,  Latin,  and  other  versions  give  sundry 
additional  details,  besides  presenting  variants  of  the  names 
of  the  persons  and  places.  However,  the  important  point 
is,  as  Dr.  Fleet  remarks,  that  a  Christian  tradition,  current 
in  Syria,  Palestine,  Egypt,  Asia  Minor,  and  all  those  parts 


10  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

as  far  as  Italy,  and  connecting  St.  Thomas  with  Parthia 
and  "  India"  and  with  two  "  Indian"  Kings  whom  it  speci- 
fically names,  is  traceable  back  to,  at  any  rate,  the  third 
or  fourth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  and  perhaps  to  the 
second  quarter  of  the  third  century.  But  as  the  Christian 
tradition  taken  in  its  details  and  in  its  external  bearings 
would  seem  to  require  corroboration  of  some  kind  or  other 
from  external  sources,  the  required  corroboration  has  been 
found  in  coins  which  from  1834  onwards  have  been  obtained 
from  Beghram  in  the  vicinity  of  Kabul,  from  Pathankot 
in  the  Gurdaspur  district  of  the  Punjab  on  the  north-east 
of  Amritsar,  from  Kandahar,  and  from  various  places  in 
Sindh  and  Seistan,  bearing  the  name  of  one  of  the  Kings, 
Gondopheres,  mentioned  in  the  tradition.  But  again  as 
these  coins  are  not  dated  and  there  was  further  wanted 
an  epigraphic  record  which  should  present  a  date  in  some 
era,  capable  of  being  recognized  as  a  date  of  Gondopheres, 
and  adaptable  to  the  tradition,  it  has  happened  that  the 
desideratum  was  at  length  supplied  by  the  discovery,  in 
or  about  1857,  of  what  is  known  as  the  Takht-i-Bahi  inscrip- 
tion, which  is  now  in  the  Lahore  Museum. 

We  need  not  pursue  the  investigation  undertaken  by 
Dr.  Fleet  in  connection  with  the  coins  and  the  inscription. 
It  is  sufficient  to  note  that  the  result,  placing  the  commence- 
ment of  the  reign  of  Guduphara-Gondophernes  in  A.D.  20 
or  21,  and  establishing  the  fact  that  in  A.D.  46  his  domi- 
nions included,  in  India  itself,  at  any  rate  the  territory 
round  about  Peshawar,  is.  as  remarked  by  Dr.  Fleet,  reached 
from  the  Takht-i-Bahi  inscription  and  the  coins,  without 
any  help  from  the  Christian  tradition  ;  while  as  regards  the 
tradition  itself,  it  gives  us,  in  just  the  period  for  the  death  of 
St.  Thomas,  a  King,  Guduphara-Gondophernes,  whose  name 


COINS  OF  KING  GONDOPHARES. 


CONNECTION  WITH  INDIA  11 

can  be  satisfactorily  identified  with  that  of  the  Gudnaphar, 
Gundaphar,  Goundapharos,  and  Gundaf  orus  of  the  tradition, 
and  who  would  be  quite  properly  mentioned  as  a  King  of 
India  or  of  the  Indians,  so  that  Dr.  Fleet  naturally  con- 
cludes that  the  evidence  so  far  is  at  least  strongly  suggestive 
of  the  fact  "  that  there  is  an  actual  basis  for  the  tradition 
in  historical  reality,  and  that  St.  Thomas  did  proceed 
to  the  East,  and  visited  the  courts  of  two  kings  reigning 
there,  of  whom  one  was  the  Guduphara-Gondophernes  of  the 
Takht-i-Bahi  inscription  and  the  coins,"  who,  judging  from 
the  wide  range  of  the  localities  from  which  the  coins  were 
obtained,  was  evidently  the  powerful  ruler  "  of  an  extensive 
territory,  which  included,  as  a  part  of  it,  much  more  of 
India  than  simply  a  portion  of  the  Peshawar  district." 


II.  IN  SOUTHERN  INDIA. 

Up  to  this  point  the  best  authorities  are  agreed.  It 
is  when  they  come  to  locate  the  territory  over  which  the 
second  King,  Mazdai,  reigned,  the  King  mentioned  in  the 
Acts  of  St.  Thomas  as  the  one  in  whose  dominions  he  brought 
his  apostolic  labours  to  a  close  by  receiving  the  martyr's 
crown,  that  some  of  them  have  been  led  astray.  Dr.  Fleet 
thinks  that  the  suggestion  made  by  M.  Sylvain  Levi  to  take 
the  name  Mazdai  as  a  transformation  of  a  Hindu  name, 
made  on  Iranian  soil  and  under  Mazdean  influences,  and 
arrived  at  through  the  forms  Bazadeo,  Bazdeo,  or  Bazodeo, 
Bazdeo,  which  occur  in  Greek  legends  on  coins,  and  to 
identify  the  person  with  King  Vasudeva  of  Mathura,  a 
successor  of  Kanishka,  is  not  unreasonable ;  and  he 
accordingly  ends  his  paper  by  remarking  that  the  other  king 
whom  the  Apostle  visited  was  very  possibly  Vasudeva 
of  Mathura. 

Now,  much  depends  on  the  acceptance  of  this  theory 
of  M.  Levi ;  for  it  follows  then  that  if  St.  Thomas  was  put 
to  death  in  the  Kingdom  of  Mathura  in  the  north,  he  could 
not  have  been  martyred  at  St.  Thomas'  Mount  in  the  south. 
It  is  no  surprise,  therefore,  to  find  Dr.  Fleet  making  the 
statement  that  there  is  no  evidence  at  all  that  the  place 
where  St.  Thomas  was  martyred  was  anywhere  in  Southern 
India.  But  Dr.  Fleet  admits  that  the  question  of  identi- 
fying Mazdai  with  King  Vasudeva  of  Mathura  is  not  a  matter 
of  the  same  certainty  as  in  the  case  of  King  Gondophernes, 
and  that  it  is  possible  that  some  other  conclusion  might 
be  formed  in  respect  of  the  name  Mazdai,  either  by  means 
of  Persian  history  or  legend  or  in  any  other  way.  In  fact 
Dr.  Medlycott  puts  forward  a  more  reasonable  suggestion 


STAINED  GLASS  OVER  THE  HIGH   ALTAR  IN  THE  CATHEDRAL  AT  SAN  THOME- 


IN  SOUTHERN  INDIA  13 

and  we  shall  presently  refer  to  it,  after  showing  that  the 
theory  of  M.  Levi  cannot  well  be  maintained. 

Father  Thurston  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia  follow- 
ing in  the  wake  of  Dr.  Fleet,  whose  article  in  the  Journal 
of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  he  refers  to,  as  we  said,  as  a 
"  severely  critical  paper/'  also  accepted  the  suggestion 
of  M.  Levi,  and  hence  also  he  naturally  finds  it  "  difficult 
to  discover  any  adequate  support  for  the  long-accepted 
belief  that  St.  Thomas  pushed  his  missionary  journeys 
as  far  south  as  Mylapore  not  far  from  Madras,  and  there 
suffered  martyrdom."  Apart  from  the  main  point, 
there  is  a  little  confusion  here  in  Fr.  Thurston's  mind. 
Mylapore  is  included  in  Madras.  The  tradition  is  that 
the  Apostle  was  martyred  at  St.  Thomas'  Mount  near  Madras, 
that  is,  as  the  Acts  say,  '  on  a  mountain  outside  the  city,' 
and  was  buried  in  Mylapore  on  the  sea  coast,  that  particular 
spot  or  village  being  called  San  Thome  after  the  Apostle. 

When  Dr.  Fleet,  in  his  article  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal 
Asiatic  Society,  for  April  1905,  accepted  M.  Levi's  sugges- 
tion to  identify  King  Mazdai  with  King  Vasudeva  of  Mathura 
in  the  north,  Dr.  Fleet,  according  to  his  own  calculation, 
allotted  B.C.  58  as  the  commencement  of  Kanishka's  reign, 
so  that  Vasudeva  who  was  one  of  his  successors  was  appa- 
rently contemporary  with  Gondophares ;  but  Dr.  Fleet 
writing  subsequently  in  1910  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica 
(see  Inscriptions,  Indian),  while  adhering  to  B.C.  58  as  the 
year  when  Kanishka  began  to  reign,  says  that  he  was 
succeeded  by  Vasishka,  Huvishka  and  Vasudeva  and  that 
then  the  dynasty  of  Kanishka  was  succeeded  by  a  foreign 
ruler,  Gondophares,  who,  he  adds,  is  well  known  to  Christian 
tradition  in  connection  with  the  mission  of  St.  Thomas, 


H  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

the  Apostle,  to  the  East.  Thus,  according  to  Dr.  Fleet 
himself,  Vasudeva  could  not  have  been  the  King  who  put 
the  Apostle  to  death  if  the  latter  was  alive  during  the  reign 
of  Gondophares,  who,  as  he  says,  succeeded  Vasudeva. 
Dr.  Fleet  apparently  could  no  longer  support  the  theory 
to  identify  King  Magdai  with  Vasudeva  when  he  wrote 
in  1910,  as  he  does  not  say  anything  in  that  article  as  to 
whether  Vesudeva  was  in  any  way  connected  with  St.. 
Thomas. 

Again,  Mr.  Vincent  Smith,  in  the  third  edition  of  his 
Early  History  of  India  published  in  1914,  not  only  ques- 
tioned the  correctness  of  Dr.  Fleet's  chronology  and  showed 
that  the  relegation  of  Kanishka  to  B.C.  58  was  wholly  out 
of  the  question,  but  placed  in  that  volume  the  accession 
to  the  throne  of  that  monarch  in  about  78  A.D.,  remarking 
that  it  was  possible  that  the  true  date  might  be  even 
later.  In  his  more  recent  work,  The  Oxford  History  of 
India,  1919,  he  says,  "  further  consideration  of  the  evidence 
from  Taxila  now  available  leads  me  to  follow  Sir  John 
Marshall  and  Professor  Sten  Konow  in  dating  the  beginning 
of  Kanishka's  reign  approximately  in  A.D.  120,  a  date  which 
I  had  advocated  many  years  ago  on  different  grounds/' 
From  this  history  it  appears  that  Kanishka  reigned  about 
forty-two  years.  Vasishka,  mentioned  before  as  Kanishka's 
immediate  successor  according  to  Dr.  Fleet,  was,  Mr.  Vincent 
Smith  says,  one  of  his  sons  and  Viceroy,  who  predeceased 
the  father,  who  was  therefore,  really  succeeded  by  Huvishka 
in  A.D.  162,  who  in  turn  was  succeeded  by  Vasudeva  in 
A.D.  182,  so  that  according  to  Mr.  Vincent  Smith,  Vasudeva 
came  too  late  to  be  the  second  king  whom  the  Apostle  is 
said  to  have  visited  and  by  whose  orders  he  was  put  to  death. 
In  either  case  the  suggestion  to  identify  King  Mazdai  with 


IN  SOUTHERN  INDIA  15 

Vasudeva  of  Mathura  falls  to  the  ground  ;  and  with  it  the 
inference  based  on  this  theory  that  St.  Thomas  was  mar- 
tyred by  a  king  who  reigned  in  the  north,  and  that  therefore 
his  martyrdom  could  not  have  taken  place  at  St.  Thomas' 
Mount  in  the  south. 

As  we  stated  before,  Dr.  Fleet  admitted  that  the  ques- 
tion of  identifying  Mazdai  with  King  Vasudeva  of  Mathura 
in  the  north  was  not  a  matter  of  the  same  certainty  as  in  the 
case  of  King  Gondophares.  and  that  it  is  possible  that 
some  other  conclusion  might  be  formed  in  respect  of  the  name 
Mazdai,  either  by  means  of  Persian  history  or  legend  or  in 
any  other  way  ;  and  we  remarked  then,  that  Dr.  Medlycott 
had  in  fact  put  forward  a  more  reasonable  suggestion.  Having 
now  conclusively  shown  that  the  Mazdai  -Vasudeva  theory 
is  altogether  untenable,  we  shall  proceed  to  examine  Dr. 
Medlycott's  suggestion. 

Although  the  point  we  have  investigated  did  not  occur 
to  Dr.  Medlycott  as  he  wrote  his  book  in  1905,  he  discusses 
the  suggestion  made  by  M.  Levi  on  other  grounds  and  shows- 
how  far-fetched  the  idea  is  to  attempt  to  identify  Mazdai 
with  Vasudeva,  while  as  suggested  by  him  there  can  be 
nothing  unreasonable  in  identifying  the  name  of  the  King 
who  was  responsible  for  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Thomas 
with  Mahadeva.  He  points  out  that  not  only  in  the  north, 
but  also  in  the  south,  Indian  Kings  were  in  the  habit  of 
incorporating  the  epithet  of  the  divinity  with  their  own 
names,  and  instances  the  fact  of  one  of  the  rulers  of  the 
Warangal  dynasty  bearing  the  name  of  Mahadeva.  We 
may  add  that  a  glance  at  Sewell's  Dynasties  of  Southern  India 
shows  how  common  it  was  for  the  Kings  of  the  South  Indian 
dynasties  to  not  only  affix  but  also  prefix  the  term  Deva 
to  their  names,  and  that  the  name  Mahadeva  itself  occurs- 
4 


16  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

also  among  the  rulers  of  other  dynasties  of  Southern  India, 
such  as  Orissa,  Vijayanagar  and  the  Yadavas  of  Devagiri. 
It  is  by  no  means  unreasonable,  therefore,  to  conclude  that 
the  name  of  the  King  who  had  St.  Thomas  martyred  was 
very  probably  Mahadeva,  which  would  be  popularly  con- 
tracted into  Mahdeo.  "  Now,"  remarks  Dr.  Medlycott, 
*l  if  the  name  Mahadeo  be  passed  through  Iranian  mouths, 
it  will  probably  assume  the  form  of  '  Masdeo,'  owing  to  the 
similarity  of  sound  with  the  Iranian  name  Mazdai,  the 
sibilant  would  be  introduced,  and  the  outcome  of  Mahadeo 
or  Madeo  would  be  Masdeo,  and  would  appear  in  Syriac 
.as  Mazdai." 

Mr.  Vincent  Smith,  again,  when  he  wrote  the  second 
edition  of  his  Early  History  of  India  in  1908,  was  absolutely 
opposed  to  the  tradition  connecting  St.  Thomas  with  the 
Southern  India,  as  a  result  probably  of  relying  mainly  on 
W.  K.  Philipps  and  Milne- Rae  ;  but  he  considerably  modi- 
fied his  views  when  he  published  the  third  edition  of  his  history 
in  1914.  and  justified  the  change  in  his  attitude  towards  it 
in  an  appendix  embodied  in  this  edition  (p.  245).  While  admit- 
ting (p.  234)  that  "  the  traditional  association  of  the  name 
of  the  Apostle  with  that  of  King  Gondophares  is  in  no  way 
at  variance  with  the  generally  received  chronology  of  the  reign 
.of  the  latter  as  deduced  from  coins  and  an  inscription,"  he 
points  out  that,  on  the  other  hand,  "  there  is  no  trace  of  the 
subsequent  existence  of  a  Christian  community  in  the  domi- 
nions which  had  been  ruled  by  Gondaphares."  He  allows, 
however,  that  "unless  a  Christian  mission  connected  by  tradi- 
tion, with  the  rite  of  St.  Thomas  had  visited  the  Indo-Parthian 
borderland  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  the  obscure  name  of 
Gondophares  can  have  come  into  the  story".  Accordingly 
he  thinks  that  "  if  anybody  chooses  to  believe  that  St. 


IN  SOUTHERN  INDIA  17 

Thomas  personally  visited  the  Indo-Partliian  Kingdom, 
his  belief  cannot  be  considered  unreasonable",  as  "  it  is  pos- 
sible that  as  Dr.  Medlycott  suggests,  he  may  have  first  visited 
Gondophares  and  then  travelled  to  Southern  India."  In 
any  case  he  does  not  accept  the  story  of  the  Apostle's  martyr- 
dom in  the  north,  for  he  says,  "  if  there  be  any  truth  in 
the  tradition  that  the  Apostle  was  martyred  at  St.  Thomas' 
Mount  near  Madras,  he  cannot  possibly  have  suffered 
in  the  Kingdom  of  Mazdai,"  taking  it  for  granted  that  King 
Mazdai  reigned  in  the  north ;  and  he  refers  here  in  a  foot- 
note, to  Father  Joseph  Dahlmann,  S.J.,  who,  he  says,  "  has 
devoted  an  ingenious  treatise,  entitled  Die  Thomas  Legende 
und  die  altesten  historisehen  Beziehungen  des  Christentums 
zum  fernen  Osten  im  Lichte  der  indischen  Alter  tumskunde 
(Freiburg  im  Breisgau,  1912),  to  an  attempt  to  establish  the 
historical  credibility  of  the  Gondophare's  story  ";  adding,  "  I 
have  read  his  work  carefully  without  being  convinced." 
We  have  not  read  Father  Dahlmann's  treatise  ourselves  ; 
but  he  apparently  also  accepted  the  theory  that  King 
Mazdai,  who  put  the  Apostle  to  death,  was  a  king  who 
reigned  in  the  north,  based  evidently  on  M.  Levi's  sugges- 
tion that  Mazdai  was  possibly  Vasudeva  of  Mathura  in  the 
north.  It  is  surprising  that  it  did  not  occur  to  Mr.  Vincent 
Smith,  while  declining  to  accept  the  story  of  the  Apostle's 
martyrdom  in  the  north,  to  question  the  theory  identifying 
King  Mazdai  of  the  Acts  with  Vasudeva  of  the  north, 
seeing  that  his  own  chronology  of  the  reign  of  the  latter 
was  at  variance  with  the  time  of  the  Apostle,  and  made 
it  impossible  for  him  bo  accept  such  a  suggestion.  Had 
he  noticed  this  discrepancy,  he  would  probably  have  been 
still  more  emphatic  and  whole-hearted  in  his  support  of  the 
tradition  connecting  the  martyrdom  of  St.  Thomas  with 


18  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

Southern  India,  than  we  find  he  is  in  the   following  admis- 
sions contained  in  his  latest  works  :  — 

'  It  must  be  admitted  that  a  personal  visit  of  the 
Apostle  to  Southern  India  was  easily  feasible  in  the  conditions 
of  the  time,  and  that  there  is  nothing  incredible  in  the  tradi- 
tional belief  that  he  came  by  way  of  Socotra,  where  an  ancient 
Christian  settlement  undoubtedly  existed.  The  actual  fact 
of  such  personal  visit  cannot  be  either  proved  or  disproved. 
I  am  now  satisfied  that  the  Christian  Church  of  Southern 
India  is  extreme!}^  ancient,  whether  it  was  founded  by  St. 
Thomas  in  person  or  not,  and  that  its  existence  may  be 
traced  back  to  the  third  century  with  a  high  degree  of  pro- 
bability. Mr.  Milne-Rae  carried  his  scepticism  too  far 
when  he  attributed  the  establishment  of  the  Christian 
congregations  to  missionaries  from  the  banks  of  the  Tigris 
in  the  fifth  or  sixth  century."  (Early  History  of  India, 
1914,  p.  235.) 

"  My  personal  impression,  formed  after  much  examina- 
tion of  the  evidence,  is  that  the  story  of  the  martyrdom 
in  Southern  India  is  the  better  supported  of  the  two 
versions  of  the  saint's  death."  (Oxford  History  of  India, 
1919,  p.  126). 

The  bias  that  has  led  some  of  our  authorities  to  confine 
St.  Thomas's  labours  to  the  north  can  further  be  seen  from 
some  absurd  and  unwarranted  inferences  drawn  by  them. 
Mr.  Philipps,  for  instance,  would  seem  to  limit  the  tracts 
visited  by  St.  Thomas  to  the  Parthian  Empire  and  to  "  an 
6  India'  which  included  the  Indus  Valley,  but  nothing  to  the 
east  or  south  of  it";  and  having  assumed  that  the  Apostle's 
tomb  must  be  looked  for  in  Southern  Persia,  he  was  driven 


IN  SOUTHERN  INDIA  19 

to  the  necessity  of  offering  the  obviously  absurd  explanation 
of  the  words  occurring  in  the  Acts  of  St.  Thomas,  where  he 
is  said  to  have  preached  "  throughout  all  India,"  that  "  this 
might  imply  a  number  of  years"  ;  that  is,  words  clearly 
indicating  place  and  extent  might,  it  would  seem,  mean  time 
or  period.  Dr.  Fleet  too,  as  we  have  said,  apparently  under 
the  influence  of  the  Mazdai-Vasudeva  theory,  is  disposed  to 
confine  St.  Thomas's  labours  to  the  north.  He  premises 
his  investigation  by  stating  that,  "  whereas  the  Christian 
tradition  represents  St.  Thomas  the  Apostle  as  the  mission- 
ary to  India  and  Parthia,  by  the  term  '  India  '  we  are  not 
necessarily  to  understand  simply  the  country  which  we  now 
call  India.  As  used  by  ancient  writers,  the  term  denoted 
the  whole  of  the  south-eastern  part  of  Asia,  on  the  south 
of  the  Himalaya  Mountains,  and  on  the  east  of  a  line 
running  from  about  the  centre  of  the  Hindu  Kush  down 
along  or  close  on  the  west  of  the  Sulaiman  Range  to  strike 
the  coast  of  the  Arabian  Sea  on  the  west  of  the  mouths  of 
the  Indus.  It  thus  included  our  India,  with  Burma,  Siam, 
Cochin  China,  the  Malay  Peninsula,  and  the  islands  of  the 
Indian  Archipelago,  and  with  also  that  portion  of  Afgha- 
nistan which  lies  between  Kabul  and  Peshawar."  And  yet, 
in  spite  of  the  evidence  before  him,  he  adds  :  "  And  the 
•*  India'  which  is  mentioned  in  the  fuller  tradition  may 
easily  have  been  a  territory  of  which  the  principal 
components  lay  in  Afghanistan  and  Baluchistan,  and 
which  embraced  in  our  India  only  the  Punjab  strictly  so 
•called  and  the  western  parts  of  Sindh. "  We  noted  before 
that,  for  the  same  reason,  it  was  not  surprising  to  find 
Dr.  Fleet  making  the  statement  that  "  there  is  no  evidence 
at  all  that  the  place  where  St.  Thomas  was  martyred  was 
-anywhere  in  Southern  India."  He  further  asserts  that 


20  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

*'  any  statement  to  that  effect  cannot  be  traced  back  be- 
yond the  middle  ages  ;  and  all  the  real  indications  point 
in  quite  another  direction." 

Now,  if  we  turn  to  the  following  quotation,  which 
Mr.  Philipps  gives,  from  the  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles, 
we  shall  see  that  it  more  than  confirms  the  statement 
made  in  the  Acts  of  St.  Tliomas  that  he  preached  "  through- 
out all  India,"  taken  in  its  plain  and  obvious  sense,  so 
that  Southern  India  cannot  w^ell  be  excluded  from  the 
range  of  the  Apostle's  field  of  labour.  The  quotation 
runs  as  follows  :  — 

"  And  after  the  death  of  the  Apostles  there  were 
Guides  and  Rulers  in  the  churches,  and  whatever  the 
Apostles  communicated  to  them,  and  they  had  received 
from  them,  they  taught  to  the  multitudes  all  the  time  of 
their  lives.  They  again  at  their  deaths  also  committed 
and  delivered  to  their  disciples  after  them  everything 
which  they  had  received  from  the  Apostles,  also  what 
James  had  written  from  Jerusalem,  and  Simon  from  the 
city  of  Eome,  and  John  from  Ephesus,  and  Mark  from 
the  great  Alexandria,  and  Andrew  fromPhrygia,  and  Luke 
from  Macedonia,  and  Judas  Thomas  from  India  ;  that  the 
epistles  of  an  Apostle  might  be  received  and  read  in  the 
churches,  in  every  place,  like  those  Triumphs  of  their  Acts, 
which  Luke  wrote,  are  read,  that  by  this  the  Apostles 
might  be  known  .  .  .  ' 

"  India  and  all  its  countries,  and  those  bordering  on 
it,  even  to  the  farthest  sea,  received  the  Apostles'  Hand 
of  Priesthood  from  Judas  Thomas,  who  was  Guide  and 
Ruler  in  the  church  which  he  built  there  and  ministered 
there." 


IN  SOUTHERN  INDIA  21 

In  the  first  portion  of  this  extract  it  will  be  observed 
that  the  name  of  the  Apostle  Thomas  is  connected  with 
India  in  the  same  way  as  Simon  (St.  Peter)  is  connected 
with  Rome,  and  each  of  the  others  with  the  respective 
places  named. 

Referring  to  the  original  translation  by  Cureton  of 
the  Ancient  Syriac  Documents  edited  and  published  by 
Wright  of  the  British  Museum  in  1864,  from  which  this 
quotation  is  taken,  we  find  that  the  second  portion  is  one 
among  other  similar  statements  made  in  connection  with 
other  Apostles,  where  the  several  countries  evange- 
lized by  each  of  them  are  enumerated  in  addition  to  the 
places  specially  associated  with  their  names  in  the  first 
portion  of  the  foregoing  extract.  The  whole  account 
shows  the  wide  range  of  the  field  of  labour  in  each  case, 
some  of  them  even  overlapping.  This  being  so,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  imagine  how  any  one  can  limit  the  range  of  St. 
Thomas's  preaching  to  Northern  India,  and  go  to  the 
length  of  explaining  away  the  words  referred  to  from  the 
Acts  of  St.  Thomas  as  Mr.  Philipps  has  done. 

At  the  same  time,  it  is  apparent  that  Mr.  Philipps 
felt  himself  the  importance  of  the  evidence  we  have  in 
the  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles,  as  he  says,  it  "  would  be  more 
important  if  we  could  fix  its  date."  While  admitting 
that,  "  from  expressions  used  in  it,  it  is  thought  to  be  of 
the  second  century  ",  he  adds,  but  Lipsius  says  ( towards 
the  end  of  the  4th  century,  which  would  bring  it  to  the 
time  of  St.  Ephraem."  Accordingly,  he  remarks,  "  apart 
from  this  Syriac  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles  "  (and  we  should 
add,  apart  also  from  the  Acts  of  St.  Thomas,  which  Burkitt 
and  Harnack  place  in  the  beginning  of  the  third  century) 


22  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

"  there  does  not  seem  to  be  any  mention  of  ( India  '  in 
connection  with  St.  Thomas  till  we  get  to  St.  Ephraem 
(378)  and  St.  Gregory  of  Nanzienzan  (389)  "  ;  and  he 
argues  that  the  early  evidence  then  is  that  St.  Thomas 
evangelized  Parthia. 

Referring  again  to  Dr.  Wright's  edition  of  the 
Ancient  Syriac  Documents  and  Cureton's  Translation,  we 
find  from  a  note  on  pages  171-172  against  the  words,  After 
the  death  of  the  Apostles  there  were  Guides  and  Rulers  in  the 
Church,  that  "  it  would  appear  from  this  passage  that  this 
treatise  must  have  been  written  anterior  to  the  time  when 
the  title  of  Bishop,  as  especially  appropriated  to  those  who 
succeeded  to  the  apostolic  office,  had  generally  obtained 
in  the  East."  Turning  then  to  the  note  on  page  161 
against  the  words,  Guide  and  Ruler,  we  find  it  stated  that 
"it  is  plain  from  the  context  here,  as  well  as  wherever  it 
occurs  in  these  early  Syriac  documents,  that  this  title  is 
precisely  the  same  as  that  of  Bishop,  although  the  Greek 
word  for  it  had  not  obtained  in  the  East.  The  first  men- 
tion that  we  find  of  the  title  Bishop  is  in  the  Acts  of 
Sharbil,  page  65,  about  A.D.  105-112.  where  Barsamya  is 
called  the  Bishop  of  the  Christians,  although  more  gener- 
ally designated  as  here."  From  this,  then,  it  appears 
that  Dr.  Cureton  would  date  the  document  at  least  early 
in  the  second  century.  Dr.  Medlycott,  by  some  inad- 
vertence much  to  his  disadvantage,  while  dealing  with 
the  date  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles,  quotes  the  wrong 
note  (page  147)  from  the  same  volume  of  the  Ancient 
Syriac  Documents,  which  refers  to  the  Doctrine  of 
Adddeus  the  Apostle,  as  having  been  written  notlater  than 
the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century.  And  so  he  argues  on 
clifferent  data  that  the  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles  must  be  of 


IN  SOUTHERN  INDIA  23 

much  earlier  date.  However,  Mr.  Philipps  apparently  saw 
himself  that  the  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles  must  be  of  very 
ancient  date  ;  for,  after  dealing  with  the  Acts  of  St.  Thomas, 
he  goes  on  to  refer  to  the  other  writers  of  the  early 
centuries,  and  he  enumerates  them  placing  the  author  of 
the  former  Syriac  work  first  on  the  list,  adding  the 
words  "  perhaps  2nd  century  "  ;  and  he  quotes  from  this 
document  first.  Dr.  Fleet  also  evidently  saw  no  reason  to 
dispute  this  date. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  authors  of  the  Doctrine  of  the 
Apostles  and  of  the  Acts  of  St.  Thomas,  belonging  to  the 
second  and  third  centuries,  respectively,  not  only  attest- 
ing to  St.  Thomas's  connection  with  India,  but  also  to 
the  fact  that  he  preached  throughout  the  country  and 
established  himself  there,  by  making  himself  Guide  and 
Euler  of  the  church  which  he  built  there  and  ministered 
there  ;  and  if  the  writer  of  The  Clementine  Recognitions 
and  Origen,  both  of  the  third  century,  state  that  St.  Thomas 
evangelized  Parthia,  the  testimony  of  the  latter,  as 
Mr.  Philipps  himself  says,  corning  "  through  the  medium  of 
Eusebius,"  whom  he  quotes  and  who  belongs  to  a  later 
century,  surely  there  is  nothing  here  to  justify 
Mr.  Philipps'  conclusion  that  St.  Thomas  was  really  "  the 
Apostle  of  the  Parthian  Empire,"  and  "  in  some  limited 
sense,"  the  Apostle  of  India,  that  is,  "  probably  of  an  'India' 
which  included  the  Indus  valley,  but  nothing  to  the  east 
or  south  of  it."  On  the  contrary,  the  whole  evidence 
distinctly  supports  the  tradition  that  St.  Thomas,  after 
preaching  the  Gospel  in  Parthia  and  other  countries, 
and  leaving,  as  we  might  expect,  Guides  and  Kulers, 
as  they  were  then  called,  to  continue  his  mission  in  those 
countries,  finally  betook  himself  to  India,  where,  as  the 
5 


24  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

Doctrine  of  the  Apostles  says,  "  he  was  Guide  and  Ruler 
in  the  Church  which  he  built  there  and  ministered  there," 
preaching  throughout  the  country  and  in  those  bordering 
on  it  even  to  the  farthest  seas. 

In  the  face  of  such  evidence  how  indeed  can  we  exclude 
Southern  India  from  the  scope  of  St.  Thomas's  labours  and 
confine  him  to  the  north  as  these  authorities  have  been 
disposed  to  do  ?  And  what  further  evidence  do  we  want  to 
establish  the  very  possible  connection  of  St.  Thomas  with 
Southern  India,  when  according  to  Dr.Fleet  himself  the  term 
"  India  "  as  used  by  ancient  writers  included  so  wide  a  tract 
as  he  has  described  ? 

However,  as  if    to   lend  support  to  the   evidence  just 
referred  to  for  the  South-Indian  apostolate  of  St.  Thomas, 
we  find  it  related  in  the  Acts  that  the  General,  who  heard 
of  St.  Thomas  preaching  "  throughout  all  India,"  came  to 
him  in  a  cart  drawn  "  by  cattle"  ;  and  Dr.  Medlycott  points 
out  how  travelling  in  a  bullock-cart  is  characteristic  of  South- 
ern India,  whereas  if  the  incident  occurred  in  the  north, 
the  horse  would  have  been  introduced  on  the  scene  and  the 
General  would  have  been  mounted  on  a  steed.   Gondophares, 
for  instance,  is  figured  on  his  coins  riding  a  horse,  not  seated 
in  a  cart  drawn  by  oxen.     Further,  the  fact  of    Mygdonia 
using  the  palki  or  palanquin  when  going  to  see  the  Apostle 
is  also  specially  peculiar  to  Southern  India.     Other  incidents 
which  strengthen  the  local  colouring  given  besides  those 
mentioned  are   also   noticed  by  Dr.   Medlycott.     The  inci- 
dents which  do  not  appear  to  be  peculiar  to  Southern  India 
mentioned  by  Mr.  Philipps  are  relatively  unimportant.     In 
lact    Mr.    Philipps    himself    says :    "we    cannot  lay  any 
particular  stress  upon  them  in  any  direction."  The  objection 
raised  by   some   critics   that   certain   '  customs'    described 


IN  SOUTHERN  INDIA  25 

in  the  Acts  of  St.  Thomas  can  be  shown  to  be  also  Biblical 
and  Hebrew,  is  not  to  the  point  ,  as  the  comparison  made 
is  between  the  customs  peculiar  to  Southern  India  and  those 
that  prevail  in  the  north. 

Further  corroborative  evidence  of  a  very  important 
nature  we  find  in  the  testimony  of  St.  Ephraem,  A.D.  300 
to  378,  whose  hymns  embody  the  local  traditions  extant 
at  the  time  in  Edessa.  That  there  was  such  a  tradition  then 
connecting  St.  Thomas  with  India,  whence  his  relics  were 
brought  to  Edessa  is  not  disputed.  The  actual  place  of 
his  martyrdom  and  burial  in  India  is  not  mentioned  by  St. 
Ephraem  ;  but  in  one  of  his  hymns  written  in  praise  of  St. 
Thomas,  he  says  :  "  A  land  of  people  dark  fell  to  thy  lot 
that  these  in  white  robes  thou  shouldst  clothe  and  cleanse 
by  baptism"  ;  and  in  another  stanza,  "  the  sunburnt  thou 
hast  made  fair."  At  the  same  time  he  blesses  the  merchant 
who  brought  so  great  a  treasure  as  the  relics  to  Edessa, 
which  city  in  turn  he  blesses  for  acquiring  and  being  worthy 
of  possessing  this  priceless  gem,  the  greatest  pearl  India 
could  yield.  Now,  if  St.  Ephraem  believed  the  relics  came 
from  Afghanistan  or  the  north-west  corner  of  India  included 
in  the  Apostle's  time  in  Gondophares's  Kingdom,  how  could 
he  describe  their  people  as  dark  or  sunburnt,  seeing  that 
those  regions  are  more  or  less  in  the  same  latitude  as 
Edessa.  The  inference,  therefore,  obviously  is  that  the 
tradition  current  in  St.  Ephraem's  time  was,  that 
St.  Thomas  preached  mainly  in  Southern  India  and  was 
martvred  and  buried  there. 


HI.  DR,  MEDLYCOTT  ON  THE  SUBJECT. 

We  may  now  follow  the  general  outline  of  Dr.  Medlycott's 
work  ;  but  may  note  in  passing  that,  of  the  different  forms 
of  the  name  of  the  Indian  King  found  in  the  Acts  of  St. 
Thomas,  the  coins  and  the  Takht-i-Bahi  inscription,  Mr. 
Fleet  uses  the  form  '  Gondophernes'  generally,  and  cites 
other  forms  only  when  literal  quotation  is  necessary,  while 
Dr.  Medlycott  prefers  to  use  the  form  '  Gondophares.'  In 
any  case  it  is  not  of  much  moment  which  form  is  used. 

The  Acts  of  St.  Thomas,  already  referred  to,  Dr.  Medly- 
cott points  out,  form  part  of  a  class  of  writings  known  as  the 
"  Apocryphal  Acts  of  the  Apostles."  These  writings  have 
of  late  claimed  the  attention  of  several  scholars  both  in 
England  and  in  Germany.  Although  the  Acts  have  come 
down  to  us  with  interpolations  intended  to  support  the 
gnostic  heresies  which  prevailed  in  the  early  days  of  Chris- 
tianity,  the  discoveries  made  in  recent  years  have  made  it 
possible  to  test  the  statements  contained  in  them  in  the 
light  of  actual  history.  Thus  Dr.  Medlycott  found  the 
ground  for  a  critical  handling  of  the  Acts  of  St.  Thomas 
already  prepared  for  him  ;  and  an  elaborate  appendix  to  his 
book  has  been  devoted  to  a  (  critical  analysis'  of  these 
Acts,  the  author's  purpose  being  to  show  that  the  principal 
events  narrated  in  them  are  based  upon  historical  reality. 
We  have  already  given  Dr.  Fleet's  version  of  the  tradition 
as  gathered  from  the  Acts. 

Dr.  Medlycott  begins  his  work  by  a  thorough  investi- 
gation of  the  evidence  furnished  by  the  coins  and  the  in- 
scription we  have  referred  to  as  confirming  the  first  portion 
of  the  tradition  recited  in  the  Acts  connecting  the  Apostle 
with  King  Gondophares.  He  then  proceeds  to  a  close 


-UJ 


DR.  MEPLYCOTT  ON  THE  SUBJECT  27 

examination    of  all  the  available  records  supplied  by  the 
East  and  West.     To  collect   and  bring  these  together  natur- 
ally involved  long  and  patient   research.     The  testimonies 
of  St.  Ephraem  and  other  Syrian  writers,  of  the  Liturgical 
books  and  Calendars  of  the  Syrian  Church,  of  the    Fathers 
of  the  Western  Church,  of  the  Calendars,  Sacramentaries 
and  Martyrologies  of  the  same  Church,  and  the     witness 
of  the  Greek  and   Abyssinian   Churches  are  all  laid  under 
contribution    and    fully    discussed.     The    evidence,    much 
of  which  is  additional  to  that  cited  by  Mr.  Philipps  and 
Dr.  Fleet,  all  go  to  confirm  the  truth  of  the  tradition  that 
St.  Thomas  did  suffer  martyrdom  in  India,  that  is  India  as 
we  know  it  now.     It  follows  then,  as    remarked  by  Dr. 
Medlycott,  that  his  tomb,  if  at   all,  ought  to  be  found  in 
India.     A  long  chain  of  witnesses  extending  from  the    sixth 
century  to  the  landing  of  the  Portuguese  on  the  shores  of 
India  is  accordingly  produced,   attesting  to  the  constant 
tradition  of  the  Church  that  the  tomb  was  really  at  Mylapore. 
And  yet  the  fact  that  the  tomb  of  St.  Thomas  must  naturally 
be  found  within  the  limits  of  India  proper,  which  in  itself, 
as  Dr.  Medlycott  remarks,  is  an  historical  aphorism,  has  met 
with   the   strongest   opposition  ever  since   the   Portuguese 
announced  the  discovery  of  his  tomb  at  Mylapore.     This 
opposition,  the  learned  author  adds,  came  first  and  chiefly 
from   quarters  which   must   cause  an  impartial  historian, 
who  patiently  investigates  the  whole  history  of  the  case, 
to  consider  the  same  as  being  rather  the  outcome  of  odiwm 
theologicum,  than  the  result  of  insufficient  historical  evidence. 
A  plausible   excuse  for  the   general  feeling   of   scepticism 
created  by  these  writers  was,  in  part,  Dr.  Medlycott  thinks, 
offered  by  the  want  of  previous  historical  knowledge  shown 
by  the    Portuguese   authorities  and  writers  in   India    who 


28  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

claimed  to  have  discovered  the  body,  or  the  entire  remains  of 
the  Apostle,  coupled  with  other  uncritical  details  ;  and  once 
the  opposite  view  arising  at  first  from  the  doubt  regarding 
the  tomb,  was  taken  up  and  ruthlessly  exploited,  it  was 
extended  to  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  by  the  Apostle 
within  the  geographical  limits  of  India  itself  and  a  widely 
extending  prejudice  was  formed.  It  is  only  in  more  recent 
times,  when  men,  indifferent  to  that  odium,  or  guided  by 
their  familiarity  with,  or  their  long  researches  in  India, 
approached  the  subject,  that  they  came  gradually,  says 
Dr.  Medlycott,  to  admit  the  Apostle's  mission  to  India,  and  to 
consider  the  strong  historical  claim  of  Mylapore  to  be  the 
possible  site  of  his  martyrdom  and  burial  as  not  unfounded. 

Dr.  W.  J.  Richards,  who  for  thirty-five  years  was  a 
C.M.S.  Missionary  in  Travancore  and  Cochin,  and  who  has 
collected  fresh  evidence  in  support  of  the  tradition,  in  his 
book  The  Indian  Christians  of  St,  Thomas  (London  1908), 
endorses  this  view,  and  writes :  "  Dr.  Medlycott  says, 
with  a  certain  amount  of  truth  that  it  is  the  odium  theologicum 
which  has  made  many  writers  so  ready  to  doubt  the  Church 
traditions  assigning  Southern  India  as  the  mission-field  of 
the  Apostle  Thomas,  and  to  contradict  also  the  beliefs  of  the 
Syrian  Christians  of  Malabar  that  they  themselves  are  the 
descendants  of  the  first  converts  there." 

Accordingly  after  setting  forth  the  available  evidence 
for  the  Indian  Apostolate,  Dr.  Medlycott  brings  forward 
such  evidence  as  upholds  for  Mylapore  the  claim  to  the  tomb. 
St.  Gregory,  Bishop  of  Tours,  in  his  "  In  gloria  Marty  rum" 
a  work  which  he  revised  in  590,  shortly  before  his  death, 
recording  the  testimony  of  one  Theodore  who  visited  the 
tomb  in  India,  writes  :— "  Thomas  the  Apostle,  according 
to  the  narrative  of  his  martvrdom,  is  stated  to  have  suffered 


DE.  MEDLYCOTT  ON  THE  SUBJECT  29 

in  India.  His  holy  remains  (corpus),  after  a  long  interval 
of  time,  were  removed  to  the  city  of  Edessa  in  Syria  and 
there  interred.  In  that  part  of  India  where  they  first 
rested  stand  a  monastery  and  a  church  of  striking  dimen- 
sions, elaborately  adorned  and  designed.  This,  Theodore,  who 
had  been  to  the  place,  narrated  to  us."  Dr.  Medlycott 
points  out  that  the  evidence  here  clearly  implies  the  exist- 
ence of  a  narrative  or  acts  of  the  martyrdom  of  the  Apostle 
which  declares  that  he  suffered  martyrdom  in  India,  the 
existence  of  the  first  tomb  of  the  Apostle,  a  church  of  large 
dimensions  covering  the  Indian  tomb,  a  monastery  adjacent, 
the  monks  of  which  no  doubt  conducted  the  services  at 
the  shrine,  the  further  knowledge  that  after  the  remains 
of  the  Apostle  had  remained  buried  in  India  for  a  time 
they  were  thence  removed  to  Edessa,  and  finally  that  they 
were  buried  anew  at  Edessa.  As  Dr.  Medlycott  remarks, 
these  facts  embrace  all  and  even  more  than  is  necessary 
to  establish  the  fact  of  the  early  knowledge  of  the  existence 
of  the  Indian  tomb  of  the  Apostle,  while  they  are  confirmed 
by  later  evidences. 

The  record  of  the  next  visit  to  the  tomb  in  India  is  found 
in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  where  King  Alfred  is  reported 
to  have  sent  in  883  an  embassy  to  Rome  and  also  to  St. 
Thomas  in  India,  in  fulfilment  of  a  vow  made  at  the  time  he 
was  besieged  by  the  heathen  Danes.  Eminent  modern 
writers  of  English  history  are  quoted  as  recording  the  in- 
cident as  an  ascertained  fact  of  history  and  not  as  legend. 
It  is  further  supported  by  the  early  chroniclers,  whose  works 
have  come  down  to  us.  Marco  Polo  and  Friar  John  of 
Monte  Corvino  appear  to  have  both  visited  the  tomb  about 
the  same  time  in  1292  or  1293  and  their  testimonies  are 
brought  forward.  Although  the  name  of  the  town  is  not 


30  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

mentioned  by  the  witnesses  referred  to,  there  seems  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  the  little  town,  where  the  body  lay, 
was  Mylapore,  which  alone,  in  all  India,  has  all  along  claimed 
to  possess  the  original  tomb  of  the  Apostle. 

The  further  witnesses  brought  forward  are  the  Blessed 
Oderic  of  Pordenone  (1324-1325),  Bishop  John  de  Marig- 
nolli  (1349),  Nicolo  de  Conti  (1425-1430),  Amr',  son  of 
Mathew,  a  Nestorian  writer  (1340)  and  certain  Nestorian 
bishops,  who  writing  in  (1504)  to  the  Catholicus  of  the  East, 
speak  of  "  the  houses  of  St.  Thomas  in  a  city  on  the  sea 
named  Meliapur."  This  brings  the  record  of  the  Indian 
Shrine  of  the  Apostle  down  to  the  arrival  of  the 
Portuguese  in  India,  and  shows  that  the  tradition  was  by 
no  means  invented  by  them  ;  that  it  was  not  only  locally 
believed  in,  but  that  it  was  known  and  testified  to  from 
the  sixth  century  onwards  by  travellers  from  the  West. 

Dr.  Medlycott  then  goes  into  further  historical  and 
traditional  evidence  regarding  the  Apostle,  attesting  to  the 
fact  that  his  remains  were  at  a  very  early  period  removed 
from  India  to  Edessa ;  that  during  the  life-time  of  St. 
Ephraem  there  existed  a  church  at  that  place  named  after  the 
Apostle,  holding  the  relics,  of  which  St.  Ephraem  speaks  in 
the  hymns  quoted  in  an  earlier  chapter  by  Dr.  Medlycott ; 
that  some  years  later  another  and  a  larger  church  in  the 
same  city  was  completed  in  honour  of  the  Apostle  de- 
scribed as  the  c  Great  Church,'  or  the  '  Basilica';  and  that  to 
this  church  the  relics  were  removed  with  great  pomp  and 
ceremony.  Dr.  Medlycott  shows  how  some  writers  have 
confused  the  second  removal  of  the  relics  with  the  first, 
also  the  new  church  with  the  older  one,  and  in  consequence 
have  made  out  that  the  translation  of  the  relics  from  India 


CO 


ALTAR  OF  ST.  THOMAS,  CATHEDRAL,  ORTONA,  ITALY,  UNDER 
WHICH  THE  APOSTLE'S  RELICS  REPOSE. 


DR.  MEDLYCOTT  ON  THE  SUBJECT  31 

took  place  at  a  later  date  ;   whereas  the  second  church  was 
completed  after  St.  Ephraem's  death  which  occurred  in  June 
373,  and  the  second  removal  of  the  relics  took  place  in  the 
year  394.     The  evidence  adduced  goes  further  to  show  that 
the  relics  of  St. Thomas  remained  at  Edessa  until  the  city  was 
sacked  and  destroyed  by  the  rising  Moslem  power,  and  that 
some  of  the  surviving  Christian  inhabitants  recovered  the 
relics  of  the  Apostle    from   the   ruins    of    the    church    and 
transferred    them    for  safety    to    an    island   off  the  coast 
of   Asia    Minor   that    of    Chios    in  the    ^Egean  Sea.     The 
stone,  which  covered  the  remains  there  and  bore   the  name 
of   the   Apostle    and   bust    engraved   and     is  now  in    the 
Cathedral  of  Ortona,  attests  to  the  genuineness  of  the  relics. 
From  Chios  the  relics  were  removed  to  Ortona  in  1258. 
While  at  Ortona,  the  relics  underwent    another  vicissitude. 
The  Turks  sacked  the  town  in  1566  and  burnt  and  destroyed 
the  churches,  including  that  of  the  Apostle,  whose  shrine 
was  exploded  by  gunpowder.     Although  the  stone  forming 
the  altar  slab  was  burst  and  that  of  chalcedony  brought 
from  Chios  was  fractured  by  the  explosion,  the  sacred  bones 
of  the  Apostle    with  the  relics  of  other  saints  were  most 
providentially  preserved  intact.     The  head  of  the  Apostle, 
which   was  first  missed,   was  found  upon  further    search 
crushed  under  the  weight  of  a  portion  of  the  fractured  altar 
stone.     It  was  reverently    picked    up    and  the    skull    was 
reconstructed  so  thoroughly  that  no  part  was  found  missing. 
The  sacred  relics  now  repose  in  a  bronze  urn  placed  beneath 
a  marble  altar,  and  the  head  of  the  Apostle  is  placed  in    a 
silver  bust  and  is  exposed  to  public    veneration    on    the 
celebration  of  the  feast.     The  slab   of   chalcedony    marble, 
which  was  brought  over  from  Chios  and  was  fractured  by 
the  Turks  is  also  preserved  in  the  Church. 
6 


IY.  THE  DOUBT  ABOUT  THE  MARTYRDOM. 

In  an  earlier  paragraph  we  noted  that  Mr.  Vincent 
Smith,  while  admitting  that  his  "  personal  experience, 
formed  after  much  examination  of  the  evidence,  is  that  the 
story  of  the  martyrdom  in  Southern  India  is  the  better 
supported  of  the  two  versions  of  the  saint's  death,"  adds  that 
it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  St.  Thomas  was  martyred 
at  all,  since  an  earlier  writer,  Heracleon.  the  gnostic,  asserts 
that  he  ended  his  days  in  peace.  Heracleon,  who  wrote  in 
the  second  century,  probably  about  170  to  180,  belonged 
to  Sicily  or  Italy.  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  in  his  Stromat, 
commenting  on  the  text  of  Luke,  xii.  11,  12,  {l  And  when  they 
shall  bring  you  into  the  synagogues,  and  to  magistrates 
and  powers,  be  not  solicitous  how  or  what  you  shall  answer, 
or  what  you  shall  say  ;  for  the  Holy  Ghost  shall  teach  you 
in  the  same  hour  what  you  must  say,"  says  that  Heracleon, 
the  most  distinguished  of  the  school  of  Valentinus,  writes, 
"  that  there  is  a  confession  by  faith  and  conduct,  and  one  with 
the  voice.  The  confession  that  is  made  by  the  voice  and 
before  the  authorities,  is  what  the  most  reckon  the  holy 
confession.  Not  soundly  :  and  hypocrites  also  can  confess 
with  this  confession.  But  neither  will  this  utterance 
be  found  to  be  spoken  universally  ;  for  all  the  saved  have 
(not  ?)  confessed  with  the  confession  made  with  the  voice 
and  departed.  Of  whom  are  Matthew,  Philip,  Thomas, 
Levi  and  many  others.  And  confession  with  the  lips  is  not 
universal,  but  partial."  Mr.  Philipps  quotes  this  passage, 
omitting  the  bracketted  word  mot  in  the  sentence,  "  for  all 
the  saved  have  not  confessed  with  the  voice  and  departed  "; 
and  hence  he  naturally  says  it  is  not  particularly  intelligible. 
It  is  taken  from  The  Writings  of  Clement  of  Alexandria 
translated  by  the  Rev.  William  Wilson,  Edinburgh, 


THE  DOUBT  ABOUT  THE  MARTYRDOM         33 

1869,  Vol.  2,  pp.  170  to  171.  But  Mr.  Philipps  also  remarks 
that  the  sense  of  the  passage  from  Clement  of  Alexandria  is 
perhaps  better  given,  than  by  Wilson,  in  an  article  on 
Heracleon  by  G.  Salmon  in  the  Dictionary  of  Christian  Bio- 
graphy, etc.,  Vol.  2,  London,  1880,  as  follows  :•— 

"  Men  mistake  in  thinking  that  the  holy  confession  is 
that  made  by  the  voice  before  the  magistrates  ;  there  is 
another  confession  made  in  the  life  and  conversation,  by 
faith  and  works  corresponding  to  the  faith.  The  first  con- 
fession may  be  made  by  a  hypocrite,  and  it  is  one  not  required 
of  all ;  there  are  many  who  have  never  been  called  on  to 
make  it,  as,  for  instance,  Matthew,  Philip,  Thomas,  Levi 
(Lebbaeus)  ;  the  other  confession  must  be  made  by  all." 

From  this  it  is  evident  that  the  omission  of  the  word, 
*'  not,"  in  the  translation  or  even  in  the  original,  which  we 
have  no  means  of  checking,  must  be  a  slip  of  the  pen,  as  the 
sentence  with  that  word  is  quite  intelligible.  Mr.  Philipps 
says  that  Lipsius  attaches  importance  to  it,  but  that  it  is  not 
necessary  to  adopt  Lipsius's  ideas,  and  that  his  theories  were 
impossible.  Dr.  Medlycott,  referring  to  Dr.  Murdock's  com- 
ment that  Clement  allows  the  statement  to  pass  unchallen- 
ged, and  that  he  takes  this  as  a  proof  that  he  had  nothing 
to  allege  against  it,  remarks  that  Heracleon  denies  the 
martyrdom  not  of  one  but  of  several  of  the  twelve 
Apostles ;  and  that  it  is  not  a  little  surprising  that 
in  the  light  of  present  day  ecclesiastical  literature, 
writers  are  found  to  appeal  to  such  an  authority  in 
opposition  to  the  common  belief  of  Christendom.  Besides, 
as  Mr.  J.  Kennedy  in  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic 
Society  for  October  1906  admits,  neither  the  Western  nor 
the  Alexandrian  Church  was  likely  to  know  much  of  events 


34  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

which,  had  occurred  outside  the  limits  of  the  Roman  Empire 
about  the  end  of  the  second  century.  On  the  other  hand 
the  fact  of  the  martyrdom  of  the  Apostle  is  testified  to  by 
the  Ads  of  St.  Thomas,  part  at  least  of  which  is  contemporary 
with  or  earlier  than  Heracleon,  and  by  St.  Ephraem  (378), 
St.  Ambrose  (397),  St.  Asterius  (400),  St.  Gaudentius  (410), 
St.  Gregory  of  Tours  (594),  and  by  later  authorities,  liturgi- 
cal books  and  martyrologies,  showing  that  this  has  been 
the  constant  tradition  of  the  Church. 


'8 

a: 

D 

UJ 
CO 


Y.  THE  MARTYRDOM, 

The  different  versions  of  the  martyrdom  of  the  Apostle 
are  also  set  forth  and  examined  by  Dr.  Medlycott.  The 
narrative,  according  to  the  Syriac  version  of  the  Acts  of  St. 
Thomas,  is  that  the  King  (Mazdai)  ordered  Thomas  to  be 
brought  up  for  judgment,  and  questioned  him  as  to  whence 
he  came  and  who  was  his  master.  The  King  hesitated 
what  sentence  he  would  pass,  or  rather  how  he  should  com- 
pass his  death  without  causing  popular  excitement,  "  be- 
cause he  was  afraid  of  the  great  multitude  that  was  there, 
for  many  believed  in  our  Lord  and  even  some  of  the  nobles.'' 
So  Mazdai  took  him  out  of  town  to  a  distance  of  about 
half  a  mile  and  delivered  him  to  the  guard  under  a  prince  with 
the  order,  "  Go  up  on  this  mountain  and  stab  him."  On 
arriving  at  the  spot  the  Apostle  asked  to  be  allowed  to  pray, 
and  this  was  granted  at  the  request  of  Vizam,  the  King's 
son,  one  of  the  two  last  converts.  Arising  from  his  prayer, 
Thomas  bid  the  soldiers  approach  and  said,  "  Fulfil  the  will 
of  him  who  sent  you."  "  And  the  soldiers  came  and  struck 
him  all  together,  and  he  fell  down  and  died."  The  Greek 
version  and  the  Latin  De  Miraculis  generally  agree  with 
the  Syriac  text,  but  the  Latin  Passio  has  a  different  account. 
In  this  version  the  death  of  the  Apostle  occurs  at  a  much 
earlier  period,  and  was  occasioned  by  the  king  forcing 
the  Apostle  to  adore  the  idol  in  the  temple.  When  at  the 
Apostle's  prayer  and  bidding  the  idol  was  destroyed,  the. 
priest  of  the  temple,  raising  a  sword  transfixed  the  Apostle, 
saying,  '  I  will  avenge  the  insult  to  my  God.'  The  local 
version .  of  the  martyrdom  prevailing  on  the  Coromandel 
Coast,  as  given  by  Marco  Polo  and  Bishop  John  de  Marignolli, 
is  that  St.  Thomas  while  praying  in  the  wood  was  accidentally 
shot  by  an  arrow  aimed  at  a  peacock.  Yet  another  version 


36  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

of  the  story,  as  related  by  Linschoten,  is  that,  owing  to  the 
miracle  performed  by  St.  Thomas  of  removing  a  log  of  wood 
which  fell  into  the  mouth  of  the  haven  of  the  town  of  Mvla- 

»/ 

pore  and  blocked  the  traffic,  whereby  many  conversions  were 
made,  the  Brahmins  became  his  great  enemies  and  sought 
to  bring  about  his  death,  which  in  the  end  they  accomplished 
by  persuading  some  of  the  people  to  stab  him  on  his  back 
while  praying  in  the  church.  The  same  narrator  states 
that  this  incident  is  found  painted  and  set  up  in  many  places 
and  churches  in  India  in  memory  of  the  event.  There  are 
also  other  local  versions  as  will  be  seen  later  on.  However, 
the  old  Liturgical  Books  and  Martyrologies  of  the  Nestorian, 
Latin  and  Greek  Churches,  all  testify  to  the  fact  that  the 
Apostle  Thomas  won  a  martyr's  crown  by  being  pierced 
by  a  lance. 

Here  Dr.  Medlycott  takes  the  opportunity  of  challen- 
ging the  statement  made  by  Mr.  W.  E.  Philipps  in  The  Indian 
Antiquary  of  April  1903,  that  the  learned  Orientalist  Asse- 
mani  deemed  the  Indian  relics  of  St.  Thomas  a  Nestorian 
fabrication.  Dr.  Medlycott  points  out  that  the  statement 
is  misleading,  since  Assemani  in  the  fourth  volume  of  his 
learned  work,  Bibliotheca  Orientalis,  Rome,  1728,  covers 
ten  folio  pages  with  his  proofs  in  defence  of  the  Indian 
Apostolate  of  Thomas,  which  he  establishes  on  the  authority 
of  the  Fathers  in  reply  to  Besnage's  cavillings  ;  and  further 
adduces  evidence  from  the  Liturgical  Books  of  the  Syrian 
Churches  including  the  Nestorian  section,  and  of  Syrian 
writers,  both  in  proof  of  his  Apostolate  as  well  as  of  his 
martyrdom  in  India.  But  the  corpus  or  bones,  as  Assemani 
points  out,  having  been  transferred  from  India  to  Edessa, 
and  Syrian,  Greek  and  Latin  writers  having,  from  the  fourth 
centurv,  written  of  the  body  of  Thomas  as  having  been 


RELIQUARY  CONTAINING 

FRAGMENT  OF  A  BONE  AND 

POINT  OF  LANCE, 

SAN  THOME  CATHEDRAL. 


REVERSE  OF  THE  RELIQUARY. 


THE  MARTYRDOM  37 

removed  '  to  Edessa  of  Mesopotamia,'  what  Assemani  really 
denies  is  that  the  body  was  found  by  the  Portuguese  in 
India  ;  and  quite  rightly,  adds  Dr.  Medlycott,  because  the 
Portuguese  on  arriving  in  India,  unaware  of  the  historical 
data  now  available  regarding  the  remains  of  the  Apostle, 
assumed  that  the  tomb  at  Mylapore  yet  held  the  entire  re- 
mains. An  admission  made  by  Mr.  Philipps  in  the  para- 
graph previous  to  the  one  containing  the  statement  challen- 
ged, appears  however  to  have  escaped  Dr.  Medlycott's  notice. 
Mr.  Philipps  says  that  the  constant  tradition  of  the  Church 
seems  to  have  been  that  the  body  was  taken  to  Edessa, 
that  St.  Ephraem,  as  quoted  by  him,  seems  to  imply  that 
part  of  the  body  had  been  left  in  India  ;  and  yet  Mr.  Philipps, 
in  the  following  paragraph  of  his  article,  makes  the  unquali- 
fied statement  that  Assemani  deemed  the  Indian  relics  of 
St.  Thomas  a  Nestorian  fabrication,  whereas  as  shown 
above  all  that  Assemani  denied  was  that  the  body  was  found 
by  the  Portuguese  on  their  arrival  in  India  ;  and  this  cer- 
tainly does  not  exclude  the  belief  by  Assemani  himself 
in  St.  Ephraem's  statement  that  portion  of  the  remains 
of  the  Apostle  was  left  behind  in  India.  As  a  fact  the 
authorities  at  the  Cathedral  of  San  Thome  claim  to  possess 
only  a  very  small  portion  of  the  relics,  consisting  of  a 
fragment  of  a  bone  and  the  extreme  point  of  a  lance. 


YL  THE  MALABAR  TRADITION, 

Dr.  Medlycott  then  gives  a  summary  of  the  tradition 
universally  accepted  by  the  St.  Thomas  Christians  of  the 
West  Coast,  and  found  prevailing  in  India  at  the  arrival 
of  the  Portuguese  as  reported  by  their  early  writers  ;  viz., 
that  St.  Thomas  landed  on  the  Malabar  Coast  at  Kodangular 
(Cranganore),  that  seven  Churches  were  established,  that 
the  Apostle  then  passed  from  Malabar  to  the  Coro- 
mandel  Coast,  where  he  suffered  martyrdom,  and  that  at 
some  subsequent  period  a  violent  persecution  raged  against 
the  Christians  on  the  Coromanclel  Coast,  compelling  many 
of  them  to  take  refuge  among  their  brethren  on  the  West 
Coast,  where  they  settled  down. 

He  quotes  Col.  Yule,  Cathay  and  the  Way  Thither,  as 
upholding  the  Malabar  tradition  that  it  was  at  Cranganore 
the  Apostle  landed  and  first  preached  there.  St.  Francis 
Xavier  is  also  quoted  in  support  of  the  existence  of  the 
belief  among  the  Christians  of  Socotra  at  the  time  of  his 
visit  to  that  Island,  that  St.  Thomas  landed  on  the  Malabar 
Coast  and  that  they  themselves  were  the  descendants  of 
the  converts  made  by  the  Apostle. 

Theophilus,  the  missionary  sent  by  Constantine  about 
the  year  354  A.D.,  is  said  to  have  gone,  in  the  course  of  his 
missionary  journey,  from  the  Maldives  to  "  other  parts  of 
India  and  reformed  many  things  which  were  not  rightly 
done  among  them."  Dr.  Medlycott  argues  that  Malabar, 
which  is  but  a  short  sail  from  the  Maldives,  must  have  been 
included  in  the  "  other  parts  of  India  "  referred  to.  Mr. 
Vincent  Smith  supports  Dr.Medlycott  in  his  contention,in  his 
Early  History  of  India,  1914,  Appendix  M.,  where  he  remarks 


THE  MALABAR  TRADITION  39    » 

**  Dr.  Medlycott  is,  I  think,  right  in  holding  that  Theophilus 
visifced  Malabar  and  found  Christians  in  that  region."     He 
also  says  that  "the  historical  traditions  of  India  and  Ceylon 
when  read  together  seem  to  carry  the  evidence  for  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Church  in  Malabar  to  the  third  century."     And 
apart  from  the  Ceylon  tradition,  he  says  :   "I  see  no  reason 
for  hesitating  to  believe  the  Indian  tradition  that  Manikka 
Vasagar  visited  Malabar  and  reconverted  two  families  of 
Christians  to  Hinduism.   The  descendants  of  these  families, 
who  are  still  known  as  Manigramakars,  are  not  admitted  to 
full  privilege  as  caste  Hindus.     Some  traditions  place  the 
reconversion  as  having  occurred  about  A.D.  270.       If  that 
date  be  at  all  nearly  correct,  the  Malabar  Church  must  be 
considerably  older.     So  far  as  I  can  appreciate  the  value, 
of  the  arguments  from  the  history  of  Tamil  literature,  there 
seems  to  be  good  independent  reasons  for  believing  that 
Manikka  Vasagar  may  have  lived  in  the  third  century. 
Some  authors  even  place  him  about  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century.    If  he  really  lived  so  early  his  relation  with 
the  Church  in  Malabar  would  confirm  the  belief  in  its  Apos- 
tolic   origin."      As,    however,    the    question   of    Manikka 
Vasagar's  date  is  still  in  dispute  we  need  not  rely  on  this 
evidence.     Besides,  as  has  been  shown,  we  have  other  in- 
dependent  evidence  to  support  the    tradition  connecting 
St.  Thomas  with  Southern  India. 


YII.  THE  TRADITIONAL  RECORD. 

After  quoting  St.  John  Chrysostom  and  the  Gospel  of 
the  XII  Apostles,  recently  recovered  from  different  Coptic 
papyrus  and  other  texts,  and  compiled  probably  not  later 
than  in  the  second  century,  in  support  of  the  tradition  that 
St.  Thomas  had  visited  nearly  the  whole  of  the  inhabited 
world  in  the  course  of  his  Apostolic  career,  Dr.  Medlycott 
sums  up  the  traditional  record  of  the  Apostle  as  follows  :  — 

(1)  He  would  have  preached  through  the  whole  of  that 
tract  of  country  lying  south  of  the  Caspian  Sea— the  '  Mare 
Hyrcanum'  of  his  days  east  of  the  mountain  range  of  Armenia 
.and  of  the  Tigris,  down  to  Karmania  in  Southern  Persia. 

(2)  It  would  be  during  this  first  Apostolic  tour  that  he 
came  in  contact  with  the  north-western  corner  of  India  at 
Gondophares'  court. 

(3)  After  the  demise  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  when 
according  to  ecclesiastical  tradition,   the  second  dispersion 
of  the  Apostles  took  place,  St.  Thomas  would  have  commen- 
ced his  second  Apostolic  tour.     Probably  from  Palestine  he 
travelled  into  Northern  Africa  and  thence,  preaching  through 
Ethiopia,  he  passed  on    to  Socotra,  where  he  must  have 
stayed  some  time  to  establish  the  faith.     Going  thence  he 
would  have  landed  on  the  West  Coast  of  India. 

(4)  From  Malabar  the  Apostle  would  find  no  difficulty 
in  crossing  over  to  the  Coromandel  Coast. 

(5)  It  would  be  on  the  Coromandel  Coast  that  he  ended 
his  Apostolic  labours,  and  this  is  upheld  by  the  joint  tradi- 
tions of  the  Coromandel  and  Malabar  coasts. 

It  is  indeed  interesting  to  see  how  the  various  traditions 
regarding     the    Apostle    mutually    hang    together ;    and 


STAINED  GLASS,  CATHEDRAL, 
BOURGES,  FRANCE. 

(See  Explanation  p.  vi.) 


THE  TRADITIONAL  RECORD  4] 

Dr.  Medlycott  naturally  remarks,  how  unreasonable  it  is  to 
suppose  that  traditions  converging  from  various  points 
mutually  self-supporting,  can  be  the  outcome  of  legendary 
imaginings.  It  is  for  those,  he  adds,  who  contest  them  to 
prove  that  they  are  inconsistent  with  any  known  facts,  and 
consequently  baseless.  Until  then,  he  rightly  contends, 
they  hold  the  field. 


• 


YIIL  CALAMINA. 

As  regards  the  name  Calamina,  which  is  mentioned  in 
some  of  the  writings  as  the  place  in  India  where  the  Apostle 
Thomas  was  martyred,  there  has  been  much  speculation. 
Dr.  Medlycott  refers  specially  to  the  article  by  Mr.  Philipps, 
which  we  have  already  alluded  to.  because,    as  he  says, 
vague  hints  are  thrown  out  and  c  speculation  '  indulged  in 
to  the  effect  that   c  Caramana  ',   our  modern   Karman  in 
southern  Persia,  might  represent  Calamina.     Mr.  Philipps 
held  that  c  from  a  geographical,  an  ethnical,  arid  indeed  as 
it  seems  to  me,  from  every  point  of  view ',  the  site  of  the 
Apostle's  tomb  ought  to  be  looked  for  in  that  quarter  rather 
than  in  Southern  India.     Dr.  Medlycott,  on  the  other  hand, 
contends  that  Calamina  never  had  a  geographical  existence, 
that  the  name  does  not  appear  in  any  of  the  older  writings- 
treating  of  the  Apostle,  while  where  it  is  mentioned,  it  is 
added  that  it  is  situated  in  India.  India,  then,  and  Southern 
India    we    should    say,    considering  the   evidence  we  have 
already  adduced,  is  the  country  where  we  should  look  for 
the  tomb  of  St.  Thomas.     What  place  is   there  in  India, 
asks  Dr.  Medlycott,  other  than  Mylapore,  which  has  ever 
set  forth  a  claim  to  it  ?  Decidedly  none  :  in  no  other  part  of 
India,  nor  elsewhere,  has  such  a  claim  been  raised— that  of 
Edessa  was  for  a  second  tomb  where  the  sacred  remains 
rested  after  removal  from  India.     Why,  then,  should  there 
be  any  objection  to  its  being  placed  in  Southern  India,  and 
topographically   at   Mylapore,     especially   as   Mr.    Philipps 
himself  admits,  '  there  is  nothing  inherently  improbable  in 
such   a  supposition '  ?     As  to  '  Carmana  '  or  Carmania  of 
old,  now  Karman,  Dr.  Medlycott  further  points  out  that  the 
Nestorians  who  had  churches,  priests  and  Christians  in  that 
part  of  Persia  down  to  past  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century, 


CALAMINA  43 

must  certainly  have  known  if  at  any  time  it  held  the  Apostle's 
tomb  ;  that  a  claim  so  much  nearer  home  would  not  have 
been  overlooked  by  them  ;  and  they  certainly  would  not 
have  come  to  India  to  search  for  it.  Quotations  are  given 
from  a  letter  of  the  Nestorian  patriarch,  Jesuab,  A.D. 
650—660,  addressed  to  Simeon,  Bishop  of  Kavardshir,  the 
Metropolitan  of  Persia  at  the  time,  to  show  how  groundless 
the  suggestion  put  forward  by  Mr.  Philipps  is.  Dr.  Medly- 
cott  however  remarks  :  c  We  owe  it  in  fairness  to  the 
writer  of  the  paper  to  add  that  having  received  from  us  a 
copy  of  the  above  passages,  he  reproduced  them  by  way  of 
rectification  in  a  Note  published  in  the  Indian  Antiquary, 
1904,  page  31,  under  the  heading  Miscellanea.  This  phase 
of  the  question  may  now  be  considered  closed." 

Gutschmid,  again,  held  the  view  that  Calamina  must 
be  identified  with  Calama  on  the  seaboard  of  Gedrosa, 
pointing  out  that  Calama  was  in  the  time  of  the  Apostle, 
under  the  sceptre  of  Gandopheres.  On  the  face  of  it  this 
view  is  quite  untenable  as  the  Apostle  was  put  to  death 
under  the  orders  of  quite  another  King  named  Mazdai, 
and  the  place  of  his  martyrdom  must  have  been  under  the 
sceptre  of  the  latter  and  not  of  the  former. 

Dr.  Medlycott  himself  goes  further  into  the  subject. 
He  observes  that  the  name  does  not  appear  in  any  of  the 
older  authentic  writings  treating  of  the  Apostle.  It  appears 
first  in  a  group  of  mostly  anonymous  writings  in  Greek, 
which  give  a  brief  summary  of  the  doings,  preachings  and 
deaths  of  the  Apostles.  From  this  class  of  writing  to  which 
scholars  have  not  been  able  to  assign  a  date,  the  supposed 
authors,  Sophronius,  a  friend  of  St.  Jerome,  Hippolytus, 
Dorotheus  and  another  are  quoted  as  mentioning  Calamina 
in  India  as  the  place  of  St.  Thomas's  martyrdom.  From 


44  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

these  writings  again  the  name  appears  to  have  been  taken  up 
by  some  Syrian  writers,  and  to  have  made  its  way  into  the 
later  Martyr ologies. 

Some  scholars  have  tried  to  discredit  the  authority 
of  these  anonymous  writings  ;  but  where  is  the  object  of 
discrediting  them  if  at  the  same  time  attempts  are  made 
to  identify  Calamina  with  some  place  outside  India.  It 
is  a  significant  fact  that  no  tradition  of  any  kind  has  been 
traced  as  having  existed  at  any  time  in  Northern  India, 
Afghanistan,  Belnchistan,  Persia  or  Arabia,  connecting  the 
martyrdom  and  burial  of  the  Apostle  with  any  place  in 
those  regions. 

Dr.  Medlycott  is  inclined  to  regard  the  name  Calamina, 
as  fictitious,  and  ventures  on  a  suggestion  as  to  how  it  did 
get  connected  with  the  Apostle  in  the  minds  of  the  writers 
referred  to,  as  the  place  of  his  martyrdom  in  India.  Dr. 
Medlycott  thinks  that  Calamina  is  probably  a  compound  of 
the  word  Kalah,  the  name  of  a  port,  the  existence  of  which 
in  the  vicinity  of  India  is  historically  beyond  a  doubt,  and 
elmina  which  in  Syriac  denotes  a  port.  Dr.  Macleane,  in 
the  Manual  of  the  Administration  of  the  Madras  Presidency, 
suggests  that  Calamina  may  be  a  corruption  from  Coro- 
mandel.  This  is  the  name  of  a  small  village  on  the  coast 
north  of  Madras,  which  has  come  to  be  applied  to  the  East- 
ern Coast  of  the  Peninsula  of  India.  There  is  also  the 
suggestion  in  Hobson  Jobson  by  Col.  Yule  and  Dr.  Burnell, 
that  the  name  is  in  fact  Choramandalam,  the  Eealm  of 
Chora,  this  being  the  Tamil  form  of  the  very  ancient  title 
of  the  Tamil  Kings  who  reigned  at  Tan j ore.  The  name 
also  occurs  in  the  forms  Cholamandalam  or  Solamandalam 
on  the  great  Temple  inscription  of  Tanjore  (llth  century) 
and  in  an  inscription  of  A.D.  1101  at  a  temple  dedicated 


CALAMINA  45 

to  Varahaswami  near  Seven  Pagodas.  It  is  not  unlikely 
that  Calamina,  as  mentioned  by  the  old  writers,  was  origi- 
nally meant  for  the  coast  on  which  the  town  where  the 
Apostle  was  martyred  was  situated.  The  suggestion,  how- 
ever, put  forward  in  the  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol.  XIII, 
page  382,  by  the  ]ate  Rev.  James  Doyle,  who  was  for  some- 
time Editor  of  the  Catholic  Register,  the  organ  of  the  diocese 
of  San  Thome,  is  much  to  the  point.  He  finds  it  far  more 
reasonable  to  believe  that  Calamina  was  an  ancient  town 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  St.  Thomas'  Mount,  that  has  wholly 
disappeared,  as  many  more  recent  historic  Indian  cities, 
have  done.  This  much  is  certain  as  he  says,  till  the  Euro- 
peans settled  in  the  place  there  was  no  Indian  name  even 
for  the  hill.  This  appears  from  the  present  Indian  name 
Faranghi  Malai  (i.e.,  the  hill  of  the  Franks)  which  is  used 
to  denote  both  the  hill  and  the  town  around  its  base,  a  service 
which  the  English  name  St.  Thomas  Mount  equally  fulfils. 


IX.  MYLAPOKE. 

As  to  Mylapore,  Dr.  Medlycott  tries  to  identify  it  with 
Ptolemy's  Manarpha  or  Maliarpha.  Of  the  different  texts 
examined  by  the  author  the  latter  form  preponderates,  and 
Dr.  Medlycott  argues  that  the  form  Maliarpha  contains 
the  two  essential  ingredients  of  the  name  Maliapur,  which 
would  be  the  form  known  or  reported  to  the  Greek  geogra- 
phers. A  Greek  desinence,  as  customary  in  such  cases,  has 
evidently  been  introduced,  so  in  place  of  pur  or  phur  (which 
may  represent  a  more  ancient  form  of  pronunciation)  we 
have  the  Greek  termination  pha  ;  nor  has  the  sound  r  of  the 
Indian  name  disappeared,  for  it  has  passed  to  the  preced- 
ing syllable  of  the  word.  He  adds  that  if  we  take  into  con- 
sideration the  inaccurate  reproduction  of  Indian  names  in 
Ptolemy's  present  text,  it  is  almost  a  surprise  that  so  much 
of  the  native  sound  of  the  name  is  yet  retained.  It  must 
be  admitted  that  the  name,  Mylapore,  is  not  mentioned  by 
other  writers  until  about  the  fifteenth  century.  The  fact, 
however,  that  the  maps  illustrating  Ptolemy's  geography 
place  Maliarpha  where  the  present  Mylapore  would  be 
shown  is  much  in  favour  of  Dr.  Medlycott 's  view.  The 
same  identification  was  suggested  previously  by  D'Anville, 
the  French  geographer  of  the  eighteenth  century  (Georgaphie 
Ancienne  Abregie,  Paris,  1788) ;  as  also  by  Paulinus  a  Sto. 
Bartholomeo,  the  Carmelite  missionary  of  the  West  Coast 
(India  Orientalis  Christiana,  Komae,  1794). 

Col.  Love  in  his  Vestiges  of  Old  Madras  supports  this 
view,  and  says  that  Mylapore  is  generally  considered  to  be 
the  Malli-arpha  of  Ptolemy,  and  that  the  original  designa- 
tion of  the  Portuguese  settlement  was  San  Thome  de 
Meliapur.  Hunter  in  the  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India  states 
that  the  name  Mylapur  is  spelt  variously— Mayilapuram,  or 


-ui 


MYLAPORE  47 

Peacock  town  ;  Malaipuram,  or  Mount  Town ;  Meliapar, 
Mirapur  (by  the  Portuguese)  ;  and  Meelapur  in  the  Tohfatal 
Majohudin ;  that  it  has  been  suggested  that  it  is  the  Mali- 
fattan  of  Kashid-ud-din,  but  that  more  recent  inquirers 
favour  the  identification  of  Negapatam  with  Malifattan. 
Dr.  Macleane  in  his  Manual  of  the  Administration  of  the 
Madras  Presidency  gives  the  derivation  of  Mylapore  from 
mayil,  Tamil  for  peacock,  and  pur  a,  Sanscrit  for  city,  with 
reference,  according  to  the  Brahmins,  to  the  tradition  that 
Parvaty  worshipped  her  husband  Shiva  in  the  form  of  a 
peacock.  According  to  the  local  Christian  tradition  the 
name  would  seem  to  be  similarly  derived,  but  with  reference 
to  the  story  ascribing  the  death  of  St.  Thomas  to  an  arrow 
aimed  at  one  of  the  peacocks  which  were  about  him  while 
praying  in  the  wood  and  testifying  to  the  fact  that  peacocks 
were  plentiful  in  the  locality  then. 

Dr.  Medlycott  lays  special  stress  on  the  Malabar  tradi- 
tion in  support  of  the  claim  of  Mylapore  to  hold  the  tomb 
of  the  Apostle.  He  is  thoroughly  convinced  even  quite 
apart  from  all  the  evidence  previously  adduced  that  if  the 
claim  of  Mylapore  to  be  the  place  of  the  martyrdom  and  of 
the  burial  of  the  Apostle  was  not  based  on  undeniable  fact, 
the  Christians  of  Malabar  would  never  have  acknowledged 
their  neighbours'  claim  to  hold  the  tomb  of  the  Apostle, 
neither  would  they  ever  be  induced  to  frequent  it  by  way 
of  pilgrimage.  Further  had  this  been  a  case  of  fictitious 
claim  put  forth  to  secure  public  notoriety  and  importance, 
they  would,  Dr.  Medlycott  adds,  as  probably  have,  any  way, 
set  up  one  for  themselves  and  would  have  certainly  ignored 
the  claim  of  the  former. 

Mr.  J.  Kennedy  in  The  East  and  The  West,  April  1907, 
admits  that  a  considerable  amount  of  truth  underlies  the 


48  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

legend  of  St.  Thomas's  ApostlesMp.  that  the  shrine  at 
Mylapore  had  been  for  many  centuries  in  existence  when  it 
was  visited  by  Marco  Polo,  and  that  the  mention  of  the 
miraculous  log  makes  it  certain  that  the  shrine  Theodore 
visited  in  the  sixth  century  was  Mylapore.  But  he  is  wholly 
sceptical  as  to  the  tomb  at  Mylapore  being  the  real  tomb 
of  the  Apostle,  as  he  would  confine  him  to  Parthia  and  the 
Indus  valley,  losing  sight  of  the  evidence  brought  forward 
above,  which  clearly  shows  that  he  cannot  reasonably  do  so. 
Accordingly,  he  goes  to  the  length  oi  suggesting  that  "  the 
discovery  of  the  tomb  of  St.  Thomas  on  the  summit  of  a 
wooded  hill  far  from  the  habitations  of  men  and  from  all 
other  Christian  communities,  must  certainly  have  been  the 
work  of  some  Christian  hermit,"  since,  as  he  makes  out,  in  the 
early  ages  "  both  in  the  East  and  the  West  the  discovery 
of  wonder-working  graves  was  almost  entirely  the  work  of 
these  wandering  ascetics,"  (hermits  and  monks)  who  played 
a  great  part  in  the  diffusion  of  Eastern  Christianity,, 
especially  in  the  wilder  districts."  Apart  from  the  inaccu- 
racy of  the  statement  that  the  tomb  was  discovered  on  the 
top  of  a  hill,  whereas  it  is  located  in  a  suburb  of  Madras 
on  a  level  with  it,  the  assumptions  contained  in  the  state- 
ment that  it  was  far  frcm  the  habitations  of  men  and  from 
all  other  Christian  communities,  are  too  glaring  to  need  even 
notice.  '  Western  saints;  in  the  centuries  immediately 
succeeding  Constantino, "  he  says,  ((  had  frequent  occasion 
to  expose  the  claims  of  so-called  martyrs'  tombs  to  super- 
stitious veneration,  nor  is  it  less  the  duty  of  the  modern 
historian."  Just  so ;  and  this  has  been  the  attitude  of  the 
Church  all  through.  But  to  assert  that  because  in  the 
early  ages  miracles  were  related  as  having  occurred  in 
connection  with  the  tombs  of  saints,  and  in  some  cases 


MYLAPOEE  49 

they  have  been  proved  to  be  spurious,  that  in  this  case 
the  discovery  of  the  tomb  must  certainly  have  been 
the  work  of  a  hermit,  is  surely  not  historical  criticism. 
To  talk,  besides,  as  he  does,  of  "  the  worship  of  wonder- 
working tombs  "  and  of  the  veneration  of  the  tomb  of  St. 
Thomas  at  Mylapore  as  a  Christian  example  of  the  Pagan 
cult  prevailing  throughout  India,  shows  strong  anti-Catholic 
bias.  Catholics  who  venerate  the  tomb  are  not  compelled 
to  believe  in  its  genuineness  ;  and  they  know  well  that  it  is  a 
question  of  evidence  and  they  may  be  mistaken  as  to  the 
fact.  They  regard  it,  in  any  case,  in  the  light  of  a  memo- 
rial, whereby  the  saint  is  remembered  and  honoured.  If 
miracles  are  said  to  have  occurred  in  connection  with  the 
reputed  tomb  or  relics,  Catholics  understand  again  that  here 
also  it  is  a  question  of  evidence,  and  that,  if  genuine,  they 
are  the  result  of  faith  excited  by  the  memorial  of  the  saint, 
whose  intercession  had  been  implored  by  clients  for  Divine 
interposition  on  their  behalf. 


X.  CONCLUSIONS. 

To  sum  up,  the  weight  of  evidence  and  probability 
would  seem  plainly  to  support  the  following  conclusions  : — 

(1)  That  St.  Thomas  did  visit  and  preach  the  Gospel 
in  India,  that  is,  India  as  we  know  it  now  ; 

(2)  That  as  two  very  ancient  documents,  such  as  the 
Doctrine  of  the  Apostles   and  the  Acts  of  St.  Thomas  state, 
one,  that  "  India  and  all  its  countries  and  those  bordering 
on  it,  even  to  the  farthest  sea,  received  the  Apostle's  hand 
of  Priesthood  from  Judas  Thomas,  who  was  Guide  and  Euler 
in  the  Church  which  he  built  there  and  ministered  there,"  and 
the  other,  that  the  Apostle  preached  "  throughout  all  India", 
and  as  St.  Ephraem  refers  to  the  people  of  the  land,  which 
fell  to  the  lot  of  St.  Thomas,  as  "  dark  "  and  "  sunburnt  ", 
while  Dr.  Fleet  admits  that  the  term  "  India  "  as  used  by 
ancient  writers  included  the  whole  of  the  south-eastern  part  of 
Asia  on  the  south  of  the  Himalaya  Mountains  so  as  to  take 
in  Burma  and  Siam.,   Cochin-China,    the  Malay  Peninsula 
and  the  Indian  Archipelago,  there  is  no  reason  why  Southern 
India  should  be  excluded  from  the  field  of  the   Apostle's 
labours  as  some  writers  have  endeavoured  to  do,  in  the  face 
of  such  evidence  and  in  spite  of  the  persistent  traditions 
connecting  St.  Thomas  with  it ; 

(3)  That  the  Apostle  did  visit  the  Courts  of  two  Kings 
reigning  in  India,  one  of  whom  may  be  taken  for  certainty 
to  be  Gondophares  in  the  North,  while  the  other  mentioned 
in  the  Acts  as  Mazdai  may  reasonably  be    identified  with 
MaJiadeva,  a  name  common  enough  among  Kings  of  the 
South  Indian  dynasties,   since  the  suggestion  to  identify 
King  Mazdai  with  Vasudeva  of  Mathura,  who,  as  we  have 


CONCLUSIONS  51 

shown,   was  not  contemporary  with    St.   Thomas,   cannot 
now  be  maintained  ; 

(4)  That  it  may  be  taken,  therefore,  that  the  Apostle 
was  martyred  in  Southern  India  "outside  the  City  "  and  "  on 
a    mountain,"    as  related  in  the  Acts,  and  that  St.  Thomas' 
Mount  and  Mylapore  are  the  only  places  which  have  been 
identified    with  the  mountain  and  city  where  the  Apostle 
was  ma  tyred  and  buried,    by     a  persistant  tradition,  the 
like  of  which  cannot  be    traced  as  having  ever  existed  in 
connection  with  any  other  place  or  places  in  India  or  else- 
where : 

(5)  That  his  remains  were    at    a    very    early    period 
removed  from  India  to  Edessa,  thence  to  Chios  and  finally 
to  Ortona,  where  they  now  repose  ; 

(6)  That,  as  at  the    original    removal     part    of    the 
remains    were  left  behind   in  India    as  appears  from  St.. 
Ephraem,  the  relics  still  preserved  in  an  ancient  reliquary  in 
the  Cathedral  at    St.  Thome  may,  not  unlikely,  be    parts 
of  the  relics  left  in  the  tomb. 


PART  III. 

SOME    MINOR    OBJECTIONS. 
L  INDIA  OF  THE  ANCIENTS. 

Some  critics,  losing  sight  of  the  evidence  we  have 
brought  forward,  suggest  that  as  some  authorities  mention 
Parthia  as  the  country  evangelized  by  St.  Thomas,  and 
others  India,  the  term  '  India  '  had  a  vague  signification  in 
ancient  times.  They  fail  to  see  that  the  Apostle  might  easily 
have  been  connected  with  both,  as  is  narrated  in  the  tradi- 
tion preserved  in  the  Roman  Breviary  and  the  Roman  Mar- 
tyrology,  that  he  preached  not  only  to  the  Parthians,  but 
also  to  the  Medes,  the  Persians,  the  Hircaneans,  and  the 
Bactrians  and  finally  betook  himself  to  the  Indians,  where  he 
ended  his  days  by  gaining  the  crown  of  martyrdom  ;  and 
that  the  mention  of  his  connection  with  one  of  these  coun- 
tries by  any  writer  need  not  necessarily  be  taken  to  exclude 
the  others,  so  as  to  require  a  forced  explanation  of  the  term 
"India."  Again,  in  connection  with  the  tradition  that  St. 
Thomas  was  martyred  at  Calamina  in  India,  attempts  have 
been  made  to  include  Persia,  Arabia  and  Ethiopia  in  the 
India  of  the  ancients  and  to  locate  Calamina  somewhere 
outside  India  proper.  We  have  noted  the  description  given 
by  Dr.  Fleet  of  the  India  of  the  ancients,  which  distinctly 
excludes  Persia,  Arabia  and  Ethiopia  from  the  limits  of 
ancient  India  ;  and  this  is  confirmed  by  an  old  document 
like  the  Bible  itself,  where  a  very  explicit  statement  occurs 
in  Esther  i,  1  regarding  Assuerus,  who  is  said  to  have 
u  reigned  from  India  even  unto  Ethiopia  over  one  hundred 


INDIA  OF  THE  ANCIENTS  53 

and  seven  and  twenty  provinces  ",  showing  clearly  that 
a  wide  tract  of  country  lay  between  India  and  Ethiopia. 
This  would  exclude  not  only  Ethiopia  itself  from  the  India 
of  the  ancients,  but  also  Persia,  which  is  mentioned  in  the 
same  book  of  the  Bible  as  a  separate  Kingdom  (Esther 
xvi,  14),  and  Arabia  which  is  spoken  of  in  other  books  as 
quite  a  distinct  country  (3  Kings  x,  15  ;  Jer.  xxv,  24  ; 
Gal.  i,  17  ;  iv,  25). 


IL   ST.  PANTJENUS. 

This   being   so,   Dr.   Medlycott's   contention    that   the 
mission  field  of  St.  Pantaenus  was  not   the    '  India  of  the 
Brahmins'  as  St.  Jerome  has  stated,  but  Arabia  Felix,  can- 
not be  upheld.     He  has  been  at  the  pains  of  trying  to  prove 
this,  because  other  writers  have  put  forward  the  claim  of 
St.  Pantaenus  to  be  the  first  missionary  who  came  to  India 
after  St.  Bartholomew,     with  the  object  of  rejecting  the 
tradition  connecting  St.  Thomas  with  it.     But  if  there  is 
quite  other  independent  evidence  in  support  of  St.  Thomas's 
connection  with  India,  as  Dr.  Medlycott  himself  has  shown 
and  as  we  have  further  brought  forward,  how  is  that  evi- 
dence in  any  way  weakend  by  conceding  that  St.  Bartho- 
lomew at  some  time,  before  or  after  St.  Thomas,  did  visit 
some  part  of  India,  where  he  left  copies  of  the  Gospel  of 
St.  Matthew  in  Hebrew,  one  of  which  St.  Pantsenus,  who 
was  sent  from  Alexandria  to  India  in    the  second  century, 
took  back  with  him.     The  incident  is  related  on  the  autho- 
rity of  Eusebius,  Bishop  of  Caesarea  (A.D.  265 — 340)  and  of 
St.  Jerome  (A.D.  331  or  340—420)  ;    but    St.  Jerome  also 
connects  St.  Thomas  with  India  in  a  way  as  to  convey  the 
unmistakable  impression  that  St.   Thomas  was  known  in 
his  days  as  the  real  Apostle  of  India,  for  he  writes  of   our 
Saviour  that  "  He  was  present  in  all  places — with  Thomas 
in  India,   with  Peter  in  Eome,  with  Paul  in  Illyria,  with 
Titus  in  Crete,  with  Andrew  in  Achaia,  with  each  apostolic 
man  in  each  and  all  countries."     Besides,  while,  as  we  have 
already  seen  from  the  Doctrine  of  the  Apostles,  St.  Thomas 
is  connected  there  with  India  in  a  special  manner,  where,  it 
is  said,  he  was  "  Guide  and  Kuler  in  the  Church  which  he 
built  there  and  ministered  there,"    it  is  also  stated  in  that 


ST.  PANT^NUS  55 

document  that  the  Apostles  ;<  visited  one  another  "  and 
"  ministered  to  each  other."  There  should  be  no  surprise,, 
therefore,  to  find  it  related  that  St.  Bartholomew  also 
visited  India. 

The  Kev.  George   Milne  Rae  in  his  book  The  Syrian 
Church  in  India  admits  that  the  India  to  which  St.  Pan- 
taenus  was  sent  was  certainly  not  Arabia  Felix,  as  Mosheim 
seems  to  have  held  ;  but  he  endeavours  to  confine  the  Saint's 
missionary  labours  eo  northern  India,  that  is,  the  India, 
as  he  says,  of  Alexander  the  Great.     Of  course,  his  whole 
aim  is  to  make  out  that  Christianity  was  not  introduced 
into  Southern  India  until  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century 
and  then  only  from  the  Nestorian  patriarchate  on  the  banks 
of  the  Tigris  by  way  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  and  thus  to  dis- 
credit the  tradition  connecting  St.  Thomas  with  Southern 
India.   Accordingly  in  support  of  his  contention  that  St.  Bar- 
tholomew and  St.  Pantaenus  both  preached  in  the  North, 
he  makes  the  assertion  that  "  in  the  second  century,"  when 
the  latter  is  reported  to  have  corne  to  India,  "  there  were 
neither  Jews,     Christians,  nor  Brahmins  in  Malabar,"  and 
that  the  community    of    Christians    of    St.  Bartholomew, 
whom  he  places  in  the  north,  were  at  the  end  of  the  second 
century  in  so  depressed  a  condition  "  that  they  were  fain  to 
get  help  from  any  quarter,  and  that  perhaps  they    found 
it  easier,    by    reason    of  the    regular  marine    trade    with 
Alexandria,  to  communicate  with  the  latter  than  with  their 
own    mother    Church    in    Mesopotamia,    from  which  they 
had  long  been  separated." 

Rev.  W.  J.  Richards,  for  thirty-five  years  C.  M.  S.  Mis- 
sionary in  Travancore  and  Cochin,  who,  since  Dr.  Medlycott 
wrote,     has    collected   fresh   evidence    in    support    of   the 
9 


56  :  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

tradition  connecting  St.  Thomas  with  Southern  India, 
shows  that  there  were  Jews  as  well  as  Brahmins  in  the 
Apostolic  age  in  Malabar  (The  Indian  Christians  of  St. 
Thomas,  1908)  ;  while  we  learn  from  Vincent  A.  Smith,  a 
recognized  authority  on  the  early  history  of  India,  that  the 
Brahmins  penetrated  into  the  south  many  centuries  before 
the  Christian  era.  (The  Oxford  History  of  India,  1919, 
page  14.) 

As  to  the  suggestion  that  the  moribund  Christian  com- 
munity of  the  north  were  glad  to  seek  help  from  Alexandria 
by  reason  of  the  marine  trade,  rather  than  from  their 
mother  Church  in  Mesopotamia,  which  was  so  much  nearer 
them,  it  evidently  did  not  occur  to  Rev.  Milne  Rae  that 
it  really  militates  against  his  main  contention  ;  for,  if  it 
was  easier  then  for  the  Christian  community  in  the  north 
to  be  recruited  from  Alexandria,  by  reason  of  the  regular 
marine  trade,  it  must  have  been  just  as  easy  for  St. 
Thomas  and  St.  Pantaenus  himself  after  the  former,  to 
have  found  their  way  to  Southern  India,  while  there  is  no 
reason  why  this  part  of  India  should  have  waited  for  six 
centuries,  in  spite  of  the  facilities  afforded  by  the  marine 
trade,  before  its  turn  came  to  be  evangelized,  and  then 
too,  as  Mr.  Milne  Rae  would  have  it,  by  Nestorians  from 
the  banks  of  the  Tigris  by  way  of  the  Persian  Gulf. 


HI.  THE  JEWS. 

In  connection  with  the  claim  to  antiquity  of  the  settle- 
ment of  the  Jews  in  Malabar,  the  Cochin  Census  Report, 
1901,  as  quoted  by  Thurston  in  Castes  and  Tribes  of  Southern 
India,  1909,  says  that  they  "are  supposed  to  have  first  come 
in  contact  with  a  Dradivian  people  as  early  as  the  time  of 
Solomon  about  B.C.  lO'OO,  for  (  philology  proves  that  the 
precious  cargoes  of  Solomon's  merchant  ships  came  from 
the  ancient  coast  of  Malabar.'  It  is  possible  that  such 
visits  were  frequent  enough  in  the  years  that  followed.  But 
the  actual  settlement  of  the  Jews  on  the  Malabar  Coast 
might  not  have  taken  place  until  long  afterwards.  Mr. 
Logan,  in  the  Manual  of  Malabar,  writes  that  ( the  Jews  have 
traditions,  which  carry  back  their  arrival  on  the  coast  to 
the  time  of  their  escape  from  servitude  under  Cyrus  in  the 
sixth  century  B.C.',  and  the  same  fact  is  referred  to  by 
Sir  W.  Hunter  in  his  '  History  of  British  India.'  This 
eminent  historian,  in  his  Indian  Empire  speaks  of  Jewish 
settlements  in  Malabar  long  before  the  second  century  A.D. 
A  Roman  merchant  that  sailed  regularly  from  Myos  Hor- 
rnaz  on  the  Red  Sea  to  Arabia,  Ceylon  and  Malabar,  is 
reported  to  have  found  a  Jewish  colony  in  Malabar  in  the 
second  century  A.D.  In  regard  to  the  settlement  of  the 
Jews  in  Malabar,  Mr.  Whish  observes  that  <cthe  Jews  them- 
selves say  that  Mar  Thomas,  the  Apostle,  arrived  in  India 
in  the  year  of  our  Lord  52,  and  themselves,  the  Jews,  in  the 
year  69  !  In  view  of  the  commercial  intercourse  between 
the  Jews  and  the  people  of  the  Malabar  Coast  long  before 
the  Christian  era,  it  seems  highly  probable  that  Christianity 
but  followed  in  the  wake  of  Judaism.  The  above  facts 
seem  to  justify  the  conclusion  that  the  Jews  must  have  set- 
tled in  Malabar  at  least  as  early  as  the  first  century  A.D.'* 


IY,  ECCLESIASTICAL  SUPPORT  TO  THE  TRADITION. 

Mr.  W.  E.  Philipps,  in  the  article  in  the  Indian 
Antiquary,  April  1903,  which  we  have  been  dealing  with, 
says  :  "  I  am  not  aware  that  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
at  Rome  have  ever  given  any  real  support  to  the  modern 
belief  that  St.  Thomas  was  martyred  near  Madras,  and 
buried  at  San  Thome  or  Mylapore  ;  there  may  be  documents 
in  which  the  idea  is  mentioned,  but  never,  I  think,  as  a  fact 
established  ;  always  with  some  qualifying  phrase  so  as  to 
leave  the  question  open."  If  Mr.  Philipps  had  referred  to 
the  Bull  of  Pope  Paul  V  erecting  the  diocese  of  San  Thome 
of  Mylapore  in  1606,  he  would  have  seen  that  one  reason 
for  doing  so  was  "  because  there  lay  buried  the  body  of  St. 
Thomas  " — There  is  no  qualifying  phrase  ;  and  it  is  further 
emphatically  stated  that  the  Holy  Father  "  by  the  apostolic 
authority  has  raised  it  in  perpetuity  to,  and  established  it 
as  the  city  of  St.  Thomas." 

Again  Leo  XITI  in  his  Apostolic  letter  dated  the  1st 
September  1886,  establishing  the  Episcopal  hierarchy  in  the 
East  Indies  refers  to  the  tradition  in  the  following  terms  : 

61  It  has  been  the  constant  tradition  of  the  Church  that 
the  duty  of  undertaking  the  discharge  of  the  apostolic  office  in 
the  vast  regions  of  the  East  Indies  fellto  the  lot  of  St.Thomas. 
He,  indeed  it  was,  as  ancient  literary  monuments  testify 
who,  after  Christ's  Ascension  into  Heaven,  having  travelled 
to  Ethiopia,  Persia,  Hyrcania  and  finally  to  the  peninsula 
beyond  the  Indus  by  a  most  difficult  route  attended  with 
most  serious  hardships,  first  enlightened  those  nations  with 
the  light  of  Christian  truth :  and  having  paid  to  the  Chief 
Pastor  of  souls  the  tribute  of  his  blood,  was  called  away  to 
his  everlasting  reward  in  Heaven.  From  that  time  forward 


ECCLESIASTICAL  SUPPORT  TO  THE  TRADITION          59 

India  never  altogether  ceased  to  revere  the  Apostle  who 
had  deserved  so  well  of  that  country.  In  the  most  ancient 
books  of  liturgical  prayers,  as  well  as  in  other  monuments  of 
those  ancient  Churches,  the  name  and  praises  of  Thomas 
were  wont  to  be  celebrated,  and  even  in  the  lapse  of  ages 
after  a  lamentable  propagation  of  error  his  memory  has  in 
no  wise  been  defaced." 

And  further  on  in  the  same  document  where  he  speaks 
of  new  dioceses  having  been  erected  in  India  four  centuries 
ago  when  the  Portuguese  possessions  grew  in  extent  he 
refers  to  the  diocese  of  Mylapore  as  having  been  established 
by  Paul  V  in  the  city  of  St.  Thomas. 

And  yet,  as  Mgr.  Zaleski,  the  late  Delegate  Apostolic 
of  the  East  Indies,  puts  it  in  his  work.  The  Apostle  St.  Thomas 
in  India  1912,  there  has  been  a  tendency  even  among  some 
Catholic  writers  to  demolish  the  old  traditions  of  the  Church, 
which  play  so  important  a  part  in  the  religious  life  of  the 
people.  They  profess  to  do  so  in  the  name  of  what  they 
consider  historical  criticism  and  under  pretext  of  keeping 
on  a  level  with  modern  scientific  methods.  We  may  add 
that  these  writers  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  considering 
the  vicissitudes  through  which  the  world  has  passed,  the 
absence  of  positive  contemporary  evidence  in  favour  of 
these  old  traditions  is  no  proof  that  they  are  not  founded 
on  fact. 


PART  IV. 

THE  LEGENDS, 
I.  MIRACLES. 

Luis  Vas  de  Camoes  (or  Camoens),  the  most  sublime 
figure  in  the  history  of  Portuguese  literature,  in  his  great 
epic  poem,  The  Lusiads,  which  celebrates  the  glories  of 
Portuguese  conquests  in  India,  thus  sings  of  St.  Thomas, 
the  Apostle,  and  Mylapore  :— 

"  Here  rose  the  potent  city,  Meliapor 

Named,  in  olden  time  rich,  vast  and  grand  : 
Her  sons  their  olden  idols  did  adore 

As  still  adoreth  that  iniquitous  band  : 
In  those  past  ages  stood  she  far  from  shore, 

When  to  declare  glad  tidings  over  the  land 
Thome  came  preaching  after  he  had  trod 

A  thousand  regions  taught  to  know  his  God. 

Here  came  he  preaching,  and  the  while  he  gave 

Health  to  the  sick,  revival  to  the  dead  ; 
When  chance  one  day  brought  floating  o'er  the  wave 

A  forest  tree  of  size  unmeasured  : 
The  King  a  Palace  building  lief  would  save 

The  waif  for  timber,  and  determined 
The  mighty  bulk  of  trunk  ashore  to  train 

By  force  of  engines,  elephants  and  men. 

Now  was  that  lumber  of  such  vasty  size, 

No  jot  it  moves,  however  hard  they  bear  ; 
When  lo  !  th'  Apostle  of  Christ's  verities 

Wastes  in  the  business  less  of  toil  and  care  : 
His  trailing  waist-cord  to  the  tree  he  ties, 

Raises  and  sans  an  effort  hales  it  where 
A  sumptuous  Temple  he  would  rear  sublime, 

A  fixt  example  for  all  future  time. 


ALTAR  OF  THE  CHURCH  ON  ST.  THOMAS'  MOUNT. 


MIRACLES  61 

Right  well  lie  knew  liow  'tis  of  Faith  aver'd 

'  Faith  moveth  mountains  *  will  or  nill  they  move, 
Lending  a  listening  ear  to  Holy  Word  : 

As  Christ  had  taught  him,  so  'twas  his  to  prove : 
By  such  a  mira.cle  much  the  mob  was  stir'd  ; 

The  Brahmins  held  it  something  from  above  ; 
For,  seen  his  signs  and  seen  his  saintly  life, 

They  fear  the  loss  of  old  prerogative. 

These  be  the  sacerdotes  of  Gentoo-Creed, 

That  of  sore  jealousy  felt  most  the  pain  ; 
They  seek  ill  ways  a  thousand  and  take  rede 

Thome  to  silence  or  to  gar  him  slain : 
The  Principal  who  dons  the  three-twine  thread, 

By  a  deed  of  horror  makes  the  lesson  plain, 
There  be  no  Hatred  fell,  and  fere  and  curst, 

As  by  false  Virtue  for  true  Virtue  nurst. 

One  of  his  sons  he  slaughters  and  accuses 

Thome  of  murther,  who  was  innocent ; 
Bringing  false  witnesses,  as  there  the  use  is, 

Him  to  the  death  they  doom  incontinent. 
The  Saint,  assured  that  his  best  excuses 

Are  his  appeals  to  God  Omnipotent, 
Prepares  to  work  before  the  King  and  Court 

A  publick  marvel  of  the  major  sort. 

He  bids  be  brought  the  body  of  the  slain 

That  it  may  live  again  and  be  affied 
To  name  its  slayer,  and  its  word  be  tane 

As  proof  of  testimony  certified. 
All  saw  the  youth  revive,  arise  again 

In  name  of  Jesu  Christ  the  Crucified  ; 
Thome  he  thanks  when  raised  to  life  anew 

And  names  his  father  as  the  man  who  slew. 


62  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

So  much  of  marvel  did  this  miracle  claim, 

Straightway  in  Holy  water  bathes  the  King 
Followed  by  many :     These  kiss  Thome's  hem 

While  those  the  praises  of  his  Godhead  sing. 
Such  ire  the  Brahmans  and  such  furies'  flame, 

Envy  so  pricks  them  with  her  venom'd  sting, 
That  rousing  ruffian-rout  to  wrath  condign 

A  second  slaughter-plot  the  Priests  design. 

One  day  when  preaching  to  the  folk  he  stood, 

They  feigned  a  quarrel  '  mid  the  mob  to  rise  : 
Already  Christ  His  Holy  man  endow' d 

With  saintly  martyrdom  that  open  the  skies. 
Rained  innumerable  stones  the  crowd 

Upon  the  victim,  sacred  sacrifice, 
And  last  a  villain,  hastier  than  the  rest, 

Pierced  with  a  cruel  spear  his  godly  breast. 

Wept  Ganges  and  Indus,  true  Thome  thy  fate, 

Wept  thee  whatever  lands  thy  foot  had  trod  ; 
Yet  weep  thee  more  the  souls  in  blissful  state 

Thou  led'st  to  don  the  robes  of  Holy  Rood. 
But  Angels  waiting  at  the  Paradise-gate 

Meet  thee  with  similing  faces,  hyming  God. 
We  pray  thee,  pray  that  still  vouchsafe  thy  Lord 

Unto  thy  Lusians  His  good  aid  afford. 

(Burton's  The  Lusiads,  Canto  X,  vs.  109-118). 


ANCIENT  STONE  IMAGE  OF  ST.  THOMAS  AT  MYLAPORE. 


ffl.  ST.  THOMAS'  MOUNT. 

This,  the  traditional  scene  of  the  martyrdom  of  St.. 
Thomas,  is  familiarly  known  as  the  "  Big  Mount",  as  Mr. 
J.  J.  Cotton   has   noted    in   his    List    of  Inscriptions    on 
Tombs    or    Monuments    in    Madras ;  and  we  should  add, 
not  "  Great  Mount  "  or  "  Great  Mount  St.  Thomas  "  as  some 
writers  affect  to  call  it.     As  far  as  our  experience  of  over 
half  a  century  goes    St.    Thomas'  Mount  has  always  been 
called   "  Big  Mount  "  by  the  residents  of  Madras  to  distin- 
guish it  from  the  "  Little    Mount,1'    which  is    about    two 
miles  nearer  Madras.     In  fact  it  is  not  big  enough  to  be  called 
"  Great  Mount."     Its   proper    name,    St.    Thomas'    Mount, 
is  well  known  to  geographers  and  historians,  and  sufficiently 
locates  and  identifies  the  place.     It  is  an  isolated  cliff  of 
green  stone  and  syenite  300  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea 
and  about  8  miles  south-west  of  Madras.     It  is  also  famous 
for  the  traditional  bleeding  cross  which  was  found  by  the 
Portuguese  about  A.D.  1547,    when  digging    amongst  the 
ruins  of  former  Christian  buildings  for  the  foundation  of 
the  chapel  over  whose  altar  the  cross  was  subsequently 
fixed.     When    discovered,     spots   resembling    blood-stains, 
it  is  said,  were  observed  on  it  which  reappeared  after  being 
scraped  away.     There  is  also  a  painting  in  this  church  of 
the  Mother  and  Child  which  is  believed  to  be  one  of  the 
seven  portraits  executed  by  the  hand  of  the  Apostle  Luke. 
St.  Thomas,  the  tradition  asserts,  brought  it  with  him  to 
India-     The  church  itself  is  dedicated  to    "  Our  Lady  of 
Expectation."     Correa  relates  how  a  beacon  fire  was  lighted 
nightly  on  the  Mount  for  the  benefit  of  iraiiiierswtono  sooner 
sighted  it  than  they  struck  their  sails  and  made  obeisance  ; 
and  Colonel  Love  remarks,  in  this  connection,  in  his  Vestiges 
of  Old  Madras,  1913,  that  "  the  Native  Christians  of  South 


ANCIENT  PICTURE  OF  THE  BLESSED 

VIRGIN  AT  ST.  THOMAS'  MOUNT 

PAINTED  ON  WOOD. 


INTERIOR  OF  CHURCH  ON 
ST.  THOMAS'  MOUNT. 


ANCIENT  CROSS  AT  ST.  THOMAS'  MOUNT. 


ST.  THOMAS'  MOUNT.  65 

India  associated  a  hill  near  Madras  with  St.  Thomas  and  the 
shrine  of  the  Mount  was  venerated  by  people  of  all  classes 
and  various  religions." 

The  cross,  which  is  sculptured  on  a  granite  slab,  has  an 
inscription  around  it.  There  is  a  facsimile  of  it  in  Epigraphica 
Indica,  Volume  IV,  page  174.  '  The  characters,"  says 
Mr.  J.  J.  Cotton  in  his  work  quoted  above,  "  are  Sassanian 
Pehlevi,  '  the  divine  high  piping  Pehlevi '  of  Omar  Khayyam's 
nightingale,  stanza  vi.  It  is  the  old  heroic  Sanscrit  of 
Persia,"  Dr.  A.  C.  Burnell,  M.C.S.,  was  the  first  in  1873 
to  decipher  the  inscription,  which  he  attributed  to  the  eighth 
century.  His  translation  is  as  follows  :— 

"  In  punishment  by  the  cross  the  suffering  of  this  who 
is  the  true  Christ,  and  God  above  and  Guide  for  ever  pure." 

The  following  is  a  transliteration  of  the  inscription  as 
given  by  Mr.  J.  J.  Cotton  in  the  work  just  quoted,  and  his 
translation  of  the  same  :  — 

Mun  hamich  Meshikhai  avakshayi  madam  -  -  afras-ich 
Khar  bukhto  sur-zay  mun  bun  dardo  dena. 

"  He  whom  the  suffering  of  the  selfsame  Messiah,  the 
forgiving  and  upraising  has  saved  is  offering  the  plea  whose 
origin  was  the  agony  of  this," 

Practically  the  same  inscription  is  found  round  the 
two  crosses  in  the  Valiyapalli  Church  at  Cottayam  in  Travan- 
core,  followed  in  the  case  of  the  larger  cross  by  a  text  in 
old  Syriac  from  Galatians  vi.  14.  "  But  far  be  it  from  me  to 
glory,  save  in  the  cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

Eeferring  to  the  Pehlevi  inscription,  Rev.  W.  H.  Richards 
in  The  Indian  Christians  of  St.  Thomas,  1908,  makes  the 
remark  that  "  this  language  owns  no  inscription  in  India 
later  than  the  eighth  century." 


IY.  THE  LITTLE  MOUNT- 

The  little  Mount  is  a  liillock  about  two  miles 
away  from  St.  Thomas'  Mount  and  nearer  Madras.  It  owes 
its  name  to  the  Portuguese,  who  with  a  view  to  distinguish 
it  from  the  Big  Mount  (St.  Thomas'  Mount)  called  the  former 
"  Monte  Pique  no."  It  contains  a  cave  to  which  St.  Thomas 
is  said  to  have  fled  and  sought  refuge  when  pursued  by  his 
persecutors,  and  farther  when  discovered  to  have  escaped 
through  a  hole  in  it  to  St.  Thomas'  Mount  where  he  was 
overtaken  and  speared  to  death.  A  beautiful  marble  altar 
has  been  erected  in  this  cave.  In  1551  the  Portuguese  built 
the  present  Church  of  our  Lady  of  Health  adjoining  the  cave, 
to  which  one  gains  access  from  within  the  Church.  On  the 
west  of  the  Church  is  a  Cross  cut  in  rock  before  which  the 
Apostle  was  wont  to  pray.  Near  by  there  is  an  opening 
in  the  rock  about  five  to  six  feet  in  depth.  It  is  called  the 
well  or  fountain  of  St.  Thomas,  who  is  said  to  have  struck  the 
rock  at  this  place,  from  which  gushed  forth  a  spring  of  clear 
water,  which  quenched  the  thirst  of  the  multitude  hearing 
him  preach,  and  which  is  believed  to  have  possessed  also 
healing  qualities. 


f 


THE  LITTLE  MOUNT  CHURCH, 


MARBLE  ALTAR  OF  ST.  THOMAS  IN  THE  CAVE 
AT  THE  LITTLE  MOUNT. 


Y.  CONCLUDING  REMARKS- 

Some  interesting  details  in  connection  with  these  legends,, 
as  related  by  old  Portuguese  and  other  writers,  will  be  found 
in  Col.  Love's  Vestiges  of  Old  Madras.  Even  if  they  are 
pure  inventions,  it  must  be  observed  that  this  fact  does  not 
in  any  way  militate  against  our  chief  contention  that 
the  Apostle  did  come  to  Southern  India  and  was  martyred 
on  a  hill  near  Madras,  seeing  that  it  is  supported,  as  we 
have  shown,  by  quite  other  independent  evidence.  On  the* 
other  hand,  the  absence  of  positive  evidence  in  support 
of  these  legends  is  no  proof  that  the  main  facts,  however  much 
they  may  have  been  added  to  and  distorted,  are  not  based 
on  reality,  or  are  by  any  means  out  of  keeping  with  the 
belief  founded  on  scripture  that  the  Apostles  went  forth 
into  the  world  endowed  with  the  gift  of  speech  and  the 
power  of  performing  miracles. 

It  mav    here    be   mentioned    that    the    Rev.    Fr.  H. 

•/ 

Hosten,  S.  J.,  of  Darjeeling,  who  spent  some  time  at  San 
Thome  about  the  beginning  of  1 921 ,  devoted  his  stay  here 
to  investigations  connected  with  the  story  of  St.  Thomas 
and  of  his  traditional  connection  with  San  Thome,  Mylaporer 
taking  notes  archaeological,  historical  and  bibliographical. 
He  has  since  started  publishing  weekly  in  the  Catholic- 
Herald  of  India,  beginning  with  the  issue  of  27th  July  1921, 
tentative  articles  on  his  findings,  which  are  eliciting  correc- 
tions and  additions,  especially  from  the  St.  Thomas  Chris- 
tians of  Malabar,  and  have  led  further  to  measures  being 
taken  to  have  translated  into  English  a  volume  on  St.. 
Thomas  and  the  Malabar  traditions  by  the  Rev.  Fr.  Bernard 
of  St.  Thomas,  T.  0.  C.  D.  This  work  was  published  in 


68  ST.  THOMAS,  THE  APOSTLE,  IN  INDIA 

Malayalam  in  1917,  and  filling  about  500  pages  would,  Fr. 
Hosten  remarks,  be  of  the  greatest  service  to  scholars,  as  the 
whole  question  of  early  Christianity  in  Malabar  is  there 
reviewed  in  the  light  of  archeology,  native  records  and 
tradition. 

PEAST  OF  ST.  THOMAS, 
21st  December  1921. 


M  IRACULOUS  SPRING  AT  THE  LITTLE  MOUNT. 


AUTHORITIES  CONSULTED. 

The    following  are  the  principal  authorities  consulted 
and  referred  to  in  the  text  :  — 

The  Bible. 

The  Roman  Breviary. 

The  Roman  Martyrolyy. 

Paul  V,  The  Papal  Bull  of  1606,  erecting  the  Diocese 
of  San  Thome  de  Meliapor. 

Leo  XIII,  Apostolic  Leltzr  of  1886,  establishing  the 

Hierarchy  in  India. 

Ancient  Syriac  Documents,  London,  1864. 
Dr.  Burkit  in  Encyclopedia  Britannioa,  Vol.  XXVI, 

llth  Edn. 

Rev.  H.  Thurston  in  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol,. 
XIV,  p.  658. 

Rev.  James  Doyle  in  Catholic  Encyclopedia,  Vol. 
XIII,  p.  382. 

W.  R.  Philipps  in  Indian  Antiquary,  1903,  page  1  ff, 

page  145  ff,  and  1904  p.  31. 
J.  F.  Fleet  in  Journal  of  the   Royal   Asiatic  Society^ 

London,  April  1905. 

J.  Kennedy  in  Journal  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society, 
London,  October  1906,  and  in  The  East  and  the 
West,  April  1907. 

Milne  Rae,  The  Syrian  Church  in  India,  Edinburg, 
1892. 


70  AUTHOEITIES  CONSULTED 

Medlycott,  India  and  the  Apostle  Thomas,  London,. 
1905. 

Richards,  Indian  Christians  of  St.  Thomas,  London, 
1908. 

Mgr.  Zaleski,  The  Apostle  Thomas  in  India,  1912. 
Vincent  A.  Smith,  The  Early  History  of  India,  1914. 
„         „       „     The  Oxford  History  of  India,  1919. 
The  Travancore  State  Manual,  1906. 
Hunter,  Imperial  Gazetteer  of  India,  1886. 

J.  J.  Cotton,  List  of  Inscriptions  on  Tombs  or  Monu- 
ments in  Madras,  1905. 

Sewell,  Dynasties  of  Southern  India,  1883. 

Macleane,  Manual  of  the  Administration  of  the 
Madras  Presidency,  Glossary,  Vol.  iii,  1893. 

Yule  and  Burnell,  Hobson  Jobson,  1903. 

The  Cochin  Census  Report,  1901,  as  quoted  by 
Thurston  in  Castes  and  Tribes  of  Southern  India,  1909. 

Col.  Love,  Vestiges  of  Old  Madras,  1913, 

Camoens,  The  Lusiads  translated  by  Burton,  London, 
1880. 


I 


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